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Bartees Strange

Horror

    Bartees Strange was raised on fear. His family used scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, Strange started using scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral. Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music he loved as a kid. His dad hipped him to Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young. Those influences merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house, culminating in a record that feels completely original.

    TRACK LISTING

    Side A:
    Too Much
    Hit It Quit It
    Sober
    Baltimore
    Lie 95
    Wants Needs
    Side B:
    Lovers
    Doomsday Buttercup
    17
    Loop Defenders
    Norf Gun
    Backseat Banton

    Dinked Edition Bonus 7":
    Side A:
    Like This
    Side B:
    Pigs Fly

    The National

    Rome

      Rome is the definitive live document of The National. Recorded live (without overdubs) on June 3, 2024 at the architecturally stunning venue Parco Della Musica Ennio Morricone, named for the famed Italian film composer, the 21-track LP showcases scintillating versions of beloved songs like "Bloodbuzz Ohio," "Don't Swallow the Cap," "I Need My Girl," "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness," “England” and "Fake Empire"; plus sharpened readings of recent tracks "Eucalyptus," "New Order T-Shirt," "Tropic Morning News" and the boundary pushing "Smoke Detector."

      The double album, mixed by longtime collaborator Peter Katis, spans the band’s 20-plus years of songwriting and reveals how each song has taken on a new life in its live performance. “You have to see this band live” is often said about The National, and now, Rome is the next best thing to actually being there.

      Reflecting how the band changes setlists significantly from night to night to cast fresh light on hidden gems from the catalog, Rome is marked by rarities such as show opener “Runaway,” “Lemonworld,” “The Geese of Beverly Road,” “Lit Up” and a tour de force pairing of “Humiliation” from the critically acclaimed album Trouble Will Find Me into Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers’ “Murder Me Rachael.”

      The Rome encore features the election anthem “Mr. November,” and, from High Violet, “Terrible Love” and the show-closing fan singalong, “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.”

      TRACK LISTING

      Runaway
      Eucalyptus
      Tropic Morning News
      New Order T-Shirt
      Don't Swallow The Cap
      Bloodbuzz Ohio
      The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness
      I Need My Girl
      Lemonworld
      The Geese Of Beverly Road
      Lit Up
      Alien
      Humiliation
      Murder Me Rachael
      England
      Graceless
      Fake Empire
      Smoke Detector
      Mr November
      Terrible Love
      Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

      Kim Deal

      Nobody Loves You More

        On 22 November 2024, Kim Deal will release her new album, Nobody Loves You More. Featuring recent single ‘Coast’, the collection of 11 songs is the Dayton, Ohio resident’s first full-length album under her own name.

        Nobody Loves You More is Kim Deal’s debut album although it’s not the first time she has gone solo – she self-released a five-part, ten-song seven-inch vinyl series in 2013. In keeping with Deal’s meticulous approach to her art, the album was refined over several years. Its oldest songs, ‘Are You Mine?’ and ‘Wish I Was’, were written and originally recorded in 2011 shortly after Deal came off the Pixies’ “Lost Cities Tour” and relocated to Los Angeles (early versions of those songs were included in said vinyl series); the last recording for Nobody Loves You More took place in November 2022 with legendary engineer and close friend Steve Albini, who helmed final track ‘A Good Time Pushed’ at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. Along the way she has brought in a variety of collaborators from Breeders past and present (Mando Lopez, twin sister Kelley Deal, Jim Macpherson, Britt Walford), to Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub), Jack Lawrence (Raconteurs) and Savages’ Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan. Nobody Loves You More was mixed by Marta Salogni and mastered by Heba Kadry.

        Every song has a story behind it, from the winter vacations with her parents in Florida Keys (‘Summerland’), wedding band covers of ‘Margaritaville’ (‘Coast’) to her mother’s dementia (‘Are You Mine?’). All in all, the record is a celebration of Deal’s unmatched artistry, nodding not only to her career highlights with celebrated bands across the alternative landscape (Pixies, The Amps, The Breeders), but also to her immovable cultural weight influencing musicians like Kurt Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo through the generations.

        TRACK LISTING

        1. Nobody Loves You More
        2. Coast
        3. Crystal Breath
        4. Are You Mine?
        5. Disobedience
        6. Wish I Was
        7. Big Ben Beat
        8. Bats In The Afternoon Sky
        9. Summerland
        10. Come Running
        11. A Good Time Pushed

        Becky And The Birds

        Only Music Makes Me Cry Now

          Thea Gustafsson — who kickstarted her musical career as Becky and the Birds in 2016 after taking on production with sheer self-determination and a vision — began laying the groundwork for her upcoming album, 'Only Music Makes Me Cry Now', in 2021. At that time, her creative process was largely informed by a wide array of sources, including: insight from past collaborations with Dijon, Seinabo Sey, and Lapsley; obscure Bandcamp deep-dives; visits to live sets at clubs and dive bars across her two homes at that time, London and her native Stockholm; a variety of media fixations (including Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth); and the crushing vortex of emotions she had been encountering in the aftermath of a life-altering breakup. During that time, she needed to “let it all out to take it all in,” motivating her to return to the studio as a means to wipe the slate completely clean and fully process everything she was experiencing. The songs she crafted during this period, which later became OMMMCN, therefore allow listeners to follow her through that time of intense healing, with the record’s exploratory, desperate, passionate, romantic, and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable lyrical backbone supported by a varied collection of sampled audio-bites from her everyday life (from old demos and phone recordings to natural city noise).

          With 'Only Music Makes Me Cry Now', Gustafsson has returned to her roots, recalling the carefree, experimental mindset she inhabited when she first picked up producing, in addition to utilizing the boundless skills she’s gained since then. With this newest collection of ethereal, erratic, heavy-hitting, and hypnotic tracks, she creates sonic worlds with the intention of staying curious, eager, and above all, brave. In retaining her universal drive to push the boundaries of her production, her innovative and distinct style shines more than ever today. With her new record, she forges forward with some of her best Becky and the Birds material to date.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Star
          2. Anymore
          3. To Trust You
          4. I Look At The Choices I Made
          5. I Made My Baby Cry
          6. When She Holds Me
          7. London Is Not The Same
          8. Everything
          9. Elsa 4-ever
          10. Won’t Do That
          11. Celebrity // Don’t Leave
          12. Only Music Makes Me Cry Now

          Daughter

          Music From Before The Storm - National Album Day 2024 Edition

            Critically acclaimed London trio Daughter will celebrate National Album Day 2024 with an exclusive yellow recycled vinyl repressing of their debut foray into soundtrack-making, 'Music from Before the Storm'. With this release, fans of Daughter and the Life Is Strange universe can now revisit and physically own the understated yet elemental score in a new form, apart from its highly sought after yet scarcely available RSD 2017 vinyl variant.

            'Music from Before the Storm's transportive yet vast and grounded yet ethereal sonic landscape resulted from the band having been tapped to helm an original musical score for Square Enix’s Life Is Strange: Before The Storm, the highly anticipated prequel to the award-winning 2015 first entry, Life Is Strange. With information from game-producers, the band crafted the score in London in 2017, referencing the game script and concept artwork as inspiration amidst their writing process. As a result, the band’s meticulous, world-building instrumentation is a key factor in the game’s storytelling arch, with various elements of their compositions relaying different sides of the lead character’s emotive state during gameplay. As noted by Line of Best Fit upon its original release with the game: “‘Music from Before the Storm' is a soundtrack that succeeds in encapsulating a great vastness and emotional depth while retaining a clear sonic aesthetic. Daughter have created a work that is cinematic and captivating.”

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Glass
            2. Burn It Down
            3. Flaws
            4. Hope
            5. The Right Way Around
            6. Witches
            7. Departure
            8. All I Wanted
            9. I Can't Live Here Anymore
            10. Dreams Of William
            11. Improve
            12. Voices
            13. A Hole In The Earth

            Tucker Zimmerman

            Dance Of Love

              Over a career that spans half a century, Zimmerman’s discography is a sonic memoir. A sprawling collection of records that have explored folk, 12-bar blues, full-band rock concertos and classical piano compositions, his work is also a tribute to the people, experiences and sounds that have shaped his life, amassing in a deeply personal and resonating songbook.

              “After years of writing and filling a box with over 500 song sheets, I had finally found my path, my originality, my voice. It had become clear to me that songs of only one kind were worth spending time on: those which had a positive message and a peaceful vibration [...] Just poetry. Little hums that perhaps might lift us all above our daily worries and fears, little hums that try to make the world a better place to live in.” – Tucker Zimmerman

              Despite sailing under the radar throughout most of his storied and multi-layered career, the 83-year-old native Californian has received praise from contemporaries like Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker (“Tucker Zimmerman is one of the greatest songwriters of all time,”) and even from one of the greats (David Bowie called Zimmerman, “too qualified for folk.”). Inspired by Lenker’s appreciation for his work, Zimmerman was brought to the States to record the album, with Big Thief (and collaborators Mat Davidson and Zach Burba) serving as his backing band. On many tracks, Lenker meets Zimmerman half-way, their vocals fusing together in a soothing harmony; Zimmerman’s beloved wife, Marie-Claire, who graces the album’s cover also joined the chorus line.

              With 'Dance Of Love', listeners will find a multi-faceted and heartfelt record from a songwriter who has had a full and exciting life decorated with meaningful friendships, hard but valuable lessons, worldly experience, and ultimately, lots of love.

              STAFF COMMENTS

              Barry says: Beautifully warm country-adjacent ballads and folky psychedelic rock that's so perfectly matched to the whole vibe of Big Thief, that their involvement doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Zimmerman's work is evocative and beautiful, and a perfect listen for any fans of Adrienne Lenker or Big Thief.

              TRACK LISTING

              1. Old Folks Of Farmersville
              2. Idiot’s Maze
              3. Lorelei
              4. The Season
              5. Burial At Sea
              6. They Don’t Say It (But It’s True)
              7. Leave It On The Porch Outside
              8. The Ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong Song
              9. Don’t Go Crazy (Go In Peace)
              10. Nobody Knows

              Cumgirl8

              The 8th Cumming

                Like a scantily clad Creature from the Black Lagoon, Manhattan four-piece cumgirl8 has emerged from their primordial goo, resurrecting in striking full colour with their highly-anticipated debut LP.

                Described as a utopian, chaotic ‘Greta Thunberg fever dream,’ 'the 8th cumming' (recorded live, entirely on analog) is rooted in a philosophy close to the band’s heart: cyberfeminism, which addresses the relationship between human and machine, nature and technology. Within this context, the record aims to examine our relationships with the online and physical world from an apocalyptic vantage point, even down to its artwork in which the band adorns slime-covered futuristic garments in a muted, murky landscape (representative of an inevitable ‘post-reality’ consisting of our deteriorating natural ecosystem and the dissolution of consciousness at the helm of artificial intelligence). Historically flexing their political muscles via outspoken activism (including protesting SXSW 2024), innuendo-ridden lyrics, adventurous stage presentation aided by costumes created in-house by the band, and merch table Plan C (Medication Abortion) pills, this current version of the band has fundamentally taken things up a notch, unafraid to introduce listeners to complicated themes all while exploring their creative boundaries and looking inward.

                The album’s tracklist sonically oscillates between dark and light, travelling intergalactically between distorted, gothic industrialism akin to the retro horror soundtracks of John Carpenter, to Chris & Cosey or Suicide-reminiscent suspenseful and sometimes romantic synth-wave, and gritty post-punk experimentalism. A handful of musical references the band turned to during their writing sessions include Miss Kittin, Delta 5, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Throbbing Gristle, ESG, Desire, Ladytron, Deli Girls, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Peaches, Björk, LustsickPuppy, Nite Fleit, White Town (specifically ‘Your Woman’), and Girl Pusher – nods to each can be seen in small doses throughout. Colliding with its varied musical landscape, the 8th cumming additionally sits firmly between hyper-realistic and fantastical in terms of its themes, calling back to the record’s interplay of cyberfeminist societal critiques and the foursome’s lived experience.

                STAFF COMMENTS

                Barry says: cumgirl8 return with another transmission of thumping machine funk and avant-garde synth-pop. Bright melodies and distorted bass throbs meet with jangly guitars and haunted vocals. Madness.

                TRACK LISTING

                1. Karma Police
                2. Ahhhh!hhhh! (i Don’t Want To Go)
                3. Mercy
                4. Hysteria
                5. UTI
                6. Simulation
                7. Girls Don’t Try
                8. IBerry
                9. Ny Winter
                10. Something New

                Cass McCombs

                Not The Way - 2024 Reissue

                  Cass McCombs’s 2002 debut EP Not The Way, a song-suite of narcotic lullabies, acutely observed lyrics, and preternatural hooks, introduced the world to a gifted songwriter possessed with a fully-formed vision and mission. His first release, the self-recorded 6-track EP was originally released on CD and was subsequently pressed by 4AD in the UK as a double 7” a few years later. Now finally getting the 12” pressing that will make collectors happy.

                  TRACK LISTING

                  A1. Not The Way
                  A2. So Damn Pure
                  A3. Opium Flower
                  B1. Your Mother And Father
                  B2. Nobody’s Nixon
                  B3. It’s Getting Colder

                  Cass McCombs

                  A - 2024 Reissue

                    Cass McCombs’s insta-classic 2003 debut album A is a formidable collection of story-songs and magnetic melodies that stands up today as a foundational document of independent rock ‘n roll to come. Featuring deep cuts ‘I Went to The Hospital’, ‘When the Bible Was Wrote’ and ‘Bobby, King of Boys Town’, A has become a rare find on vinyl and title many have asked him to repress over the years.

                    TRACK LISTING

                    A1. I Went To The Hospital
                    A2. Bobby, King Of Boys Town
                    A3. What Isn’t Nature
                    A4. AIDS In Africa
                    A5. A Comedian Is Someone Who Tells Jokes
                    B1. Gee, It’s Good To Be Home
                    B2. Meet Me Here At Dawn
                    B3. When The Bible Was Wrote
                    B4. My Pilgrim Dear
                    B5. Bedding Down Post-Xmastime
                    B6. My Master

                    Cass McCombs

                    PREfection - 2024 Reissue

                      With 2005’s flawless second LP PREfection, Cass McCombs entered the pantheon of singer-songwriters dealing in a signature thematic and sonic universe studded with effortless catchiness, singular mood, and literary lyrics of rare distinction. Featuring single ‘Sacred Heart’ and favourites ‘Equinox’ and ‘She’s Still Suffering’, PREfection set the scene for Cass’s 2007 breakthrough album Dropping The Writ, rounding off a golden period when Cass was in his ascendance.

                      TRACK LISTING

                      A1. Equinox
                      A2. Subtraction
                      A3. Multiple Suns
                      A4. Tourist Woman
                      A5. Sacred Heart
                      B1. She’s Still Suffering
                      B2. Cuckoo
                      B3. Bury Mary
                      B4. City Of Brotherly Love
                      B5. All Your Dreams May Come True

                      Cocteau Twins And Harold Budd

                      The Moon And The Melodies - 2024 Remaster

                        Almost forty years after it was initially released, 'The Moon and the Melodies' by Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd is reissued on vinyl for the first time – remastered, from the original tapes, by Robin Guthrie himself.

                        'The Moon and the Melodies' is a singular record within the Cocteau Twins’ catalogue – unusually ethereal, even by their standards, and largely instrumental, guided by the free-form improvisations of Harold Budd, an ambient pioneer who had drifted into their orbit as if by divine intervention. Building on the atmospheric bliss of Victorialand, released earlier the same year, it signaled a possible future for the trio, yet it was a path they’d never take again.

                        Over the ensuing years, 'The Moon and the Melodies' has attracted a passionate fan base. Its most atmospheric tracks routinely turn up in ambient DJ sets. ‘Sea, Swallow Me’ is one of the Cocteau Twins’ most streamed songs on Spotify, having found a new life on TikTok, where it serves as the soundtrack to innumerable expressions of hard-to-express melancholy.

                        For such a low-key affair, the album casts a long shadow – but Raymonde believes the record’s uniqueness stems directly from its humble, unpremeditated origins. “It captured a moment in time between friends that are enjoying making music together. Really, that’s the essence of it.”


                        TRACK LISTING

                        1. Sea, Swallow Me
                        2. Memory Gongs
                        3. Why Do You Love Me?
                        4. Eyes Are Mosaics
                        5. She Will Destroy You
                        6. The Ghost Has No Home
                        7. Bloody And Blunt
                        8. Ooze Out And Away, Onehow 

                        Kristin Hersh

                        Hips & Makers - 30th Anniversary Edition

                          Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition of Kristin Hersh’s stunning debut album, which includes b-sides, string versions and lyrics and sleeve notes by Kristin.

                          TRACK LISTING

                          CD1:
                          1. Your Ghost
                          2. Beestung
                          3. Teeth
                          4. Sundrops
                          5. Sparky
                          6. Houdini Blues
                          7. A Loon
                          8. Velvet Days
                          9. Close Your Eyes
                          10. Me And My Charms
                          11. Tuesday Night
                          12. The Letter
                          13. Lurch
                          14. The Cuckoo
                          15. Hips And Makers

                          CD2:
                          1. Hysterical Bending
                          2. The Key
                          3. Uncle June And Aunt Kiyoti
                          4. When The Levee Breaks
                          5. A Loon (String Version)
                          6. Sundrops (String Version)
                          7. Me And My Charms (String Version)
                          8. Velvet Days (String Version)
                          9. The Key (String Version)
                          10. Velvet Days (String Version - Instrumental)

                          Gene Clark

                          No Other Sessions (RSD24 EDITION)

                            THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

                            IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.



                            Spoonfed Hybrid

                            Spoonfed Hybrid (RSD24 EDITION)

                              THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

                              IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.






                              Kristin Hersh

                              Hips And Makers (RSD24 EDITION)

                                THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

                                IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.



                                Adrianne Lenker

                                Bright Future

                                  Following the previously released single ‘Ruined,’ ‘Sadness As A Gift’ sees Lenker at her most familiar and warm, a track that is both utterly timeless, yet sounding new and surprising on every listen. The aliveness of Adrianne’s voice keeps her poetry aloft. She sings in a circle completed by guitar, piano, violin, and all voices. “The seasons go so fast // Thinking that this one was going to last // Maybe the question was too much to ask.”

                                  On Bright Future, Adrianne Lenker, a songwriter known for turns of phrase and currents of rhyme, says it plainly, “You have my heart // I want it back.” Documented with analogue precision, what began as an experiment in collaboration, became proof Adrianne’s heart did return, full to the brim, daring her into the unknown.

                                  During the high vibrance of autumn 2022, the Big Thief band member got lucky. Everyone could come. Three musical friends, “Some of my favourite people,” had space in their busy touring schedules to join her at the forest-hidden, analogue studio, Double Infinity. The musicians - Hakim, Davidson, and Runsteen - were known to Adrianne but newer to each other. “I had no idea what the outcome would be,” she recalls. The result? “It was magical,” she says. Adrianne’s musical risk became Bright Future, the studio’s first album, a 12-track telling of a journeyed heart.

                                  Bright Future’s co-producer and engineer, Philip Weinrobe, prepared the studio. He has been Adrianne’s partner on previous solo albums, but this was something new. Adrianne did not intend to make an album. They would instead explore the songs with no expectations. Even with an open outcome, from the start, Phil wanted to capture the sessions with the purest, technical honesty. He rolled onto Double Infinity’s old cherry wood floors an Otari 1/2 inch 8-Track and Studer console. To fill the air of the 150 year-old main room, Adrianne wanted piano, guitar, and violin. Mat Davidson plays them all. “I’ve known Mat a long time,” she says, “It doesn’t matter what instrument, his spirit just pours through.” At 17, Adrianne met Nick Hakim. She trusted her friend of 15 years to bring his sensitivity to the piano. “The way Nick would hold my songs, he would put every ounce of love.” Adrianne first met Josefin Runsteen in an Italian castle, and sought the classically trained violinist and percussionist’s “magnetic and contagious” energy. “She has such fire.” In addition to instrumentation, they made a chorus, adding carefully measured vocal harmonies. The sessions impressed and enchanted Adrianne. “I think the thing these people have in common, they are some of the best listeners I know musically. They have extreme presence.”

                                  The shelter and ease of the woodland Double Infinity studio is an element of the recordings. “It felt like everyone’s nervous systems released,” she says. “Once we were IN the song, somehow we just knew. No one stopped a take. We didn’t listen back. I only listened after everybody else left.” As a result, Bright Future has the best qualities of thoughtful engineering with the spontaneous swim of a field recording. There are details to savour, fingertips on strings, felt pads nodding in the piano, the harmonies a few steps back, all smoothly laid to tape. It comes together to allow Adrianne’s songs to be as they are, unarmoured and light-footed.

                                  Admirers of Adrianne’s solo music and Big Thief will find on Bright Future her reliable talent captured in stunning, magnetic clarity. In the company of parlour instruments, Adrianne’s modern melodic and lyrical inventions create new traditions. Her vocal flights at times outwit gravity, then land, guiding along an earthly path. The wholeness of the un-spliced recordings preserves a time of musical friendship during a golden season. The album also features the original recording of the now-beloved Big Thief song ‘Vampire Empire.’ Although they recorded for only some days, in Adrianne’s recollection, “It felt like we were together forever.”

                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                  Liam says: Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker is back at it again with another gorgeous solo album. Painstakingly beautiful and incredibly intimate, these twelve tracks once again prove that Lenker is one of the best songwriters of our generation - a must buy!

                                  TRACK LISTING

                                  1. Real House
                                  2. Sadness As A Gift
                                  3. Fool
                                  4. No Machine
                                  5. Free Treasure
                                  6. Vampire Empire
                                  7. Evol
                                  8. Candleflame
                                  9. Already Lost
                                  10. Cell Phone Says
                                  11. Donut Seam
                                  12. Ruined

                                  Dry Cleaning

                                  Boundary Road Snacks And Drinks + Sweet Princess EP - 2024 Reissue

                                    After a prolific 18-month period releasing two critically acclaimed John Parish-produced studio albums, New Long Leg (2021) and Stumpwork (2022), as well as last year’s companion release the five-track Swampy EP, South London’s Dry Cleaning are taking a moment to reflect on their journey and pay homage to their roots.

                                    Dry Cleaning’s origin story is well known by now. Guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton, and bassist Lewis Maynard had been friends and musical collaborators for years, and invited mutual friend Florence Shaw – a visual artist, picture researcher and drawing lecturer – to join the band in 2017. With clear musical influences from the Feelies, the Necessaries, the B52s and Pylon, and constrained by the small garage space they rehearsed in, Dry Cleaning were drawn to making simple music; direct and uncomplicated, anything superfluous was left behind.

                                    By March 2018 the group had recorded the six-track debut EP Sweet Princess with producer Kristian Craig Robinson at Total Refreshment Centre in a single day. Two months later, in May 2018, the band played their first live show in Dalston at the Shacklewell Arms, and released the EP in August. Sweet Princess was a thrilling debut, its dizzying and restless instrumentals with Shaw’s sardonic vocals delivering a satirical collage of witty observations and social commentary. A further 6 songs in the form of the Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks EP quickly followed two months after. It was named in tribute to the band’s rehearsal space in Maynard’s family’s south London (Sidcup) home, and to his mother Susan whose home-cooked meals sustained the four friends in between sessions. With singles like ‘Sit Down Meal’ and ‘Viking Hair’, Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks is a powerful companion to Sweet Princess. They share a similar pent-up energy, unsurprising given they came to life in the same environment those EPs were created in, an environment that had a huge influence on the band during those formative years.

                                    TRACK LISTING

                                    Boundary Road Snacks And Drinks:
                                    1. Dog Proposal
                                    2. Viking Hair
                                    3. Spoils
                                    4. Jam After School
                                    5. Sombre One
                                    6. Sit Down Meal

                                    Sweet Princess:
                                    1. Goodnight
                                    2. New Job
                                    3. Magic Of Meghan
                                    4. Traditional Fish
                                    5. Phone Scam
                                    6. Conversation

                                    Pixies

                                    Live At The BBC

                                      Coinciding with a sold-out tour, Pixies at the BBC, 1988-91 is being released on March 8th on 4AD. Being pressed for the first time on vinyl, it’s also going to be available on double CD.

                                      Between 1988 and 1991 – during the band’s 4AD years – Pixies recorded six sessions for the BBC, five for John Peel and one for Mark Goodier. Catching the raw energy of the band’s live performances, these sessions felt immediately noteworthy, timestamping a moment when Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering were motoring out front.

                                      Among the twenty-four tracks they recorded in this period (inc. two doubles - ‘Allison’ and ‘Wave of Mutilation’) are favourites from mini-album Come on Pilgrim and three of their four 4AD studio albums. Also recorded were three covers; reworks of The Beatles’ ‘Wild Honey Pie’, Eraserhead’s ‘(In Heaven) Lady in the Radiator Song’ and The Beach Boys’ ‘Hang On To Your Ego’, a track Black Francis covered a few years later on his debut Frank Black solo album.

                                      Originally released on CD in 1998, this reboot now sees all tracks from the six sessions included and presented in chronological order. Something fans have been asking for. Coming as both a triple black vinyl LP and double CD, the sleeve is also new with a wonderful black and gold design by Chris Bigg now adorning it. A design that really stands out, Chris pays loving tribute to the band’s late-visual director Vaughan Oliver, using unseen archival Pixies imagery by long-time collaborator Simon Larbalestier.

                                      STAFF COMMENTS

                                      Barry says: There are few bands that have such a stellar live reputation as The Pixies, and this release sees their incomparable BBC sessions committed to the physical format, in it's entirety. Their legendary peel sessions form 5/6 of the release, and then the Mark Goodier session from 1990 (including the arguably better sounding version of the brilliant 'Wave Of Mutilation') rounds out the sextet. Top stuff.

                                      TRACK LISTING

                                      John Peel Session 3rd May 1988
                                      1. Levitate Me
                                      2. Hey
                                      3. In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)
                                      4. Wild Honey Pie
                                      5. Caribou

                                      John Peel Session 9th October 1988
                                      6. Dead
                                      7. Tame
                                      8. There Goes My Gun
                                      9. Manta Ray

                                      John Peel Session 16th April 1989
                                      10. Down To The Well
                                      11. Into The White
                                      12. Wave Of Mutilation

                                      John Peel Session 11th June 1990
                                      13. Allison
                                      14. Velouria
                                      15. Hang On To Your Ego
                                      16. Is She Weird

                                      Mark Goodier Session 18th August 1990
                                      17. Monkey Gone To Heaven
                                      18. Ana
                                      19. Allison
                                      20. Wave Of Mutilation

                                      John Peel Session 23rd June 1991
                                      21. Palace Of The Brine
                                      22. Letter To Memphis
                                      23. Motorway To Roswell
                                      24. Subbacultcha

                                      Dry Cleaning

                                      Boundary Road Snacks And Drinks

                                        After a prolific 18-month period releasing two critically acclaimed John Parish-produced studio albums, New Long Leg (2021) and Stumpwork (2022), as well as last year’s companion release the five-track Swampy EP, South London’s Dry Cleaning are taking a moment to reflect on their journey and pay homage to their roots.

                                        Dry Cleaning’s origin story is well known by now. Guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton, and bassist Lewis Maynard had been friends and musical collaborators for years, and invited mutual friend Florence Shaw – a visual artist, picture researcher and drawing lecturer – to join the band in 2017. With clear musical influences from the Feelies, the Necessaries, the B52s and Pylon, and constrained by the small garage space they rehearsed in, Dry Cleaning were drawn to making simple music; direct and uncomplicated, anything superfluous was left behind.

                                        By March 2018 the group had recorded the six-track debut EP Sweet Princess with producer Kristian Craig Robinson at Total Refreshment Centre in a single day. Two months later, in May 2018, the band played their first live show in Dalston at the Shacklewell Arms, and released the EP in August. Sweet Princess was a thrilling debut, its dizzying and restless instrumentals with Shaw’s sardonic vocals delivering a satirical collage of witty observations and social commentary. A further 6 songs in the form of the Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks EP quickly followed two months after. It was named in tribute to the band’s rehearsal space in Maynard’s family’s south London (Sidcup) home, and to his mother Susan whose home-cooked meals sustained the four friends in between sessions. With singles like ‘Sit Down Meal’ and ‘Viking Hair’, Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks is a powerful companion to Sweet Princess. They share a similar pent-up energy, unsurprising given they came to life in the same environment those EPs were created in, an environment that had a huge influence on the band during those formative years.

                                        TRACK LISTING

                                        1. Dog Proposal
                                        2. Viking Hair
                                        3. Spoils
                                        4. Jam After School
                                        5. Sombre One
                                        6. Sit Down Meal
                                        7. Strong Feelings

                                        Erika De Casier

                                        Still

                                        Erika de Casier isn’t searching for perfection – she’s just trying to show you where she’s at right now. As ever, 'Still' proves that de Casier is a master of writing songs that speak to universal experiences of modern life, even for all their specificities and quirks. If 'Essentials' (2019) was filled with perfect songs about flirtation and new love, and 'Sensational' (2021) added wrinkles in the form of partners who were rude and plainly annoying, 'Still' sees de Casier writing about genuine heartbreak with a new clarity. For all the new heaviness that arises on 'Still' - and the subtle political valence that comes alongside - de Casier’s music remains as fun and sensual as it’s always been. 'Still' confirms that there are few artists making music that so freely slips between sensitivity and irreverence, sex and sadness. Among all the success, the accolades, the acclaim, her greatest achievement may be, simply: she’s still Erika de Casier.

                                        All of this is to say the album is classic de Casier, her idiosyncratic mix of luxuriant electronica and moonlit R&B drilled further into that one-of-a-kind sound here. Her songwriting is as masterful and universal as ever, and her proficiency as a producer heightened as she produces other voices (They Hate Change, Shygirl, Blood Orange) for the first time. She also invites new collaborators, working with live musicians in addition to samples. N, co-producer of 'Essentials' and 'Sensational', returns here, but added to the fold are Jonathan Jull Ludvigsen, Carl Emil Johansen, Niels Kirk, Christian Rhode Lindinger, Nick León, Kirsten Nyhus Janssen and Tobias Sachse, adding live drums, synths, guitar, bass and more. These musicians, as well as de Casier’s chorus of friends who sing and rap on the record, add a jolt and crackle to her world; where those first two records felt like dispatches straight from the recesses of de Casier’s brain – intimate thoughts slinking through the ether at 2am – 'Still' feels like a conversation between friends in the backroom of a crowded bar. Those friends embolden de Casier to deliver some of her most emphatic songs ever,.

                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                        Matt says: Really nice catch-all of modern influences - alt-RnB, jungle, synth-pop - executed with a sophisticated and unique style of song writing prowess which stands Erika De Casier out as high performing and individual artist.

                                        TRACK LISTING

                                        1. Right This Way
                                        2. Home Alone
                                        3. Lucky
                                        4. The Princess
                                        5. Ice (ft. They Hate Change)
                                        6. Test It
                                        7. Ooh
                                        8. Believe It
                                        9. Anxious
                                        10. Ex-Girlfriend (ft. Shygirl)
                                        11. Toxic
                                        12. My Day Off
                                        13. Twice (ft. Blood Orange)
                                        14. Someone

                                        Helado Negro

                                        Phasor

                                          ‘LFO’ (which stands for Lupe Finds Oliveros), sung in Spanish, brings together inspiration from Lupe Lopez and the minimalist composer and sonic meditation practitioner Pauline Oliveros for a song about ambient stress and endless scrolling. Oliveros is well-known, Lopez maybe less so. Lopez was a Mexican American woman who worked for Fender Guitar building amplifiers in the 50’s. All the amps were marked on the inside by a piece of masking tape with the amp builder’s name on it. “Lupe’s amps are sought after, her care and touch apparently harnessed a special sound from this design," Roberto Carlos Lange aka Helado Negro explains. "I fell in love with this story and this legacy and the mythology surrounding it. How craft touches us so deeply in the smallest ways. Deep care for the littlest things makes all the difference.”

                                          Some of the seeds for Phasor were planted in 2019 on Lange’s 39th birthday after a 5-hour visit to Salvatore Matirano’s SAL MAR machine at the University of Illinois. A complex synthesizer that creates music generatively with a vintage super computer brain and analog oscillators, it can create an infinite amount of possibilities in sound sequences. “I was enthralled by it,” Lange recalls.

                                          That SAL MAR experience became the bedrock for Phasor. It taught Lange more about himself and became central to his creative process. “It gave me special insight into what stimulates me,” Lange explains. “This pursuit of constant curiosity in process and outcome. The songs are the fruit, but I love what’s under the dirt. The unseen magical process. I don’t want everybody to see it because not everyone cares to see it. Some of us just want the fruit. I do. But I want to grow the fruit, too.”

                                          Phasor is Lange’s tightest collection—deep, atmospheric, meticulously executed. It’s aligned with 2019’s This Is How You Smile which found him incorporating more upfront drums and bass and focused grooves. His 2021 album, Far In, focused on being in quarantine—talking to your mother through Zoom instead of across a room. Phasor, in turn, is a homage to going outside again. It’s a returning-to-life record, remembering what the sun feels like and letting it warm your skin.

                                          STAFF COMMENTS

                                          Barry says: The First thing that struck me about Helado Negro's new LP for indie mainstays 4AD was how sumptuous the production is. It's a beautifully rich, syrupy selection of sidechained shuffling percussion and soulful vocals. On top of that, Lange's vocals add layers of laid-back groove and shimmering, echoing ambience.

                                          TRACK LISTING

                                          1. LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros)
                                          2. I Just Want To Wake Up With You
                                          3. Best For You And Me
                                          4. Colores Del Mar
                                          5. Echo Tricks Me
                                          6. Out There
                                          7. Flores
                                          8. Wish You Could Be Here
                                          9. Es Una Fantasia

                                          Future Islands

                                          People Who Aren't There Anymore

                                            Future Islands was never meant to last. After eighteen years and 1,400 live shows, Future Islands show they're not only still here, they're making the most powerful music of their fascinating, but unexpectedly long and storied career.

                                            For Future Islands, albums aren’t a static reflection of a moment in time, they are a fluid chapter in their lives that can change and mutate. People change and pull away. The band is no different, coming up against their future while staring at their past. They’re not the same people they were when Future Islands began nearly two decades ago. They are now spread about, some settled down and some still moving. People Who Aren’t There Anymore reflects the transience of a band’s existence; the rare privilege of travelling all over the world contrasting with the sadness of fleeting moments in and out people’s lives. Being everywhere but also nowhere. Remembering the lives lost and the living they’ll never see again, cherishing the present and being grateful for the past.

                                            Where they’ve pursued ever-higher energy anthems in the past, they’ve turned inward this time, and unlocked a new level of ferocity, delivering some of their most inspiring and most heartbreaking tracks by doing the opposite: taking their time, making each breath, each syllable, each cymbal crash count. The result is a powerful, defining statement from a group of musicians that have made the best album of their career.


                                            STAFF COMMENTS

                                            Barry says: I have to say that I never particularly got Future Islands before this album. I obviously acknowledged that they were good musicians, but I found that Herring's delivery was a little overwrought for the comparatively subtle instrumentals. For me, the rich, widescreen instrumentals on 'People Who Aren't There Anymore' are the *perfect* way to frame Herring's strong presence and results in by far their best LP to date.

                                            TRACK LISTING

                                            King Of Sweden
                                            The Tower
                                            Deep In The Night
                                            Say Goodbye
                                            Give Me The Ghost Back
                                            Corner Of My Eye
                                            The Thief
                                            Iris
                                            The Fight
                                            Peach
                                            The Sickness
                                            The Garden Wheel

                                            Stornoway

                                            Beachcomber’s Windowsill - 2024 Reissue

                                              As its title suggests, Stornoway’s 2010 debut album, ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’, is something of a treasure. Featuring singles ‘Fuel Up’, ‘I Saw You Blink’ and ‘Zorbing’, it showed just why so many were excited by the Oxford indie-folk quartet’s arrival - a DIY guitar band unusually rooted in folk tradition. They stood out further with their deft ability to try their hand at most instruments, never shy to experiment while their pure pop harmonies soared.
                                              Warmly received on release, ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ quickly attained Silver status in the UK and, among the many positive reviews, The Observer praised it for having a “real emotional depth that transports their music from throwaway sunny songs to something altogether more poignant and enduring,” while the NME called it “beautifully rendered and melodically magnificent; a Constable landscape of a record.”
                                              The album is complemented by a stunning sleeve by designer Chris Bigg, who has played on the album’s title and their songs about nature by working with illustrations of shells, aquatic life and old maps. 


                                              TRACK LISTING

                                              1. Zorbing
                                              2. I Saw You Blink
                                              3. Fuel Up
                                              4. The Coldharbour Road
                                              5. Boats And Trains
                                              6. We Are The Battery Human
                                              7. Here Comes The Blackout
                                              8. Watching Birds
                                              9. On The Rocks
                                              10. The End Of The Movie
                                              11. Long Distance Lullaby

                                              Stornoway

                                              Tales From Terra Firma - 2024 Reissue

                                                Stornoway followed up ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’, in 2013 with ‘Tales from Terra Firma’. Ten this year, ‘Tales From Terra Firma’ is an album of stories - birth, death, marriage and coming of age. Featuring the singles ‘The Bigger Picture’ and ‘Farewell Appalachia’, it was recorded and produced by the band in the main at their own Oxford space, bringing in mix engineer George Shilling (having loved his work with Teenage Fanclub, a huge influence on them) midway to help them achieve their vision. It worked too. By being true to themselves and remaining oblivious to outside influences, they made a truly special album where life is unfurled for the listener. The Guardian said in their full marks review that there’s “no curse of the second album for Stornoway, who’ve stretched out without losing sight of the intimacy of their charming debut.”

                                                For its sleeve, the band worked with the artist Kirini Kopcke who used fragments of lyrics as her start point to create a picture foreach ‘tale’ on the album, presenting a strip cartoon-like depiction of the adventures in the life of the main protagonist.


                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                1. You Take Me As I Am
                                                2. Farewell Appalachia
                                                3. The Bigger Picture
                                                4. (A Belated) Invite To Eternity
                                                5. Hook, Line, Sinker
                                                6. Knock Me On The Head
                                                7. The Great Procrastinator
                                                8. The Ones We Hurt The Most
                                                9. November Song

                                                Stornoway

                                                Beachcomber's Windowsill - Dinked Archive Edition

                                                  Back from a hiatus and with a new album, Stornoway are today announcing a super limited Dinked Edition of their 2010 debut album, ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’.

                                                  Out of print on vinyl since release and now highly collectable, ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ is as its title suggests and something of a treasure. Featuring singles ‘Fuel Up’, ‘I Saw You Blink’ and ‘Zorbing’, it showed just why so many were excited by the Oxford indie-folk quartet’s arrival - a DIY guitar band unusually rooted in folk tradition. They stood out further with their deft ability to try their hand at most instruments, never shy to experiment while their pure pop harmonies soared.

                                                  Warmly received on release, it quickly attained Silver status in the UK and critical acclaim included The Observer praising it for having a “real emotional depth that transports their music from throwaway sunny songs to something altogether more poignant and enduring,” while the NME called it “beautifully rendered and melodically magnificent; a Constable landscape of a record.” Complemented by a stunning sleeve by designer Chris Bigg who was influenced by the album’s title and their songs about nature, working in illustrations of shells, aquatic life and old maps.

                                                  This special Dinked Edition will see the album being pressed on eco-vinyl and will come with an exclusive obi strip, art print and lyric book, all using FSC-approved card and paper. Limited to just 500 copies, it’s available to pre-order now from any of the Dinked network of UK independent stores and will be on the shelves from December 8th.


                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                  Side A
                                                  Zorbing
                                                  I Saw You Blink
                                                  Fuel Up
                                                  The Coldharbour Road
                                                  Boats And Trains
                                                  We Are The Human Battery
                                                  Side B
                                                  Here Comes The Blackout…!
                                                  Watching Birds
                                                  On The Rocks
                                                  The End Of The Movie
                                                  Long Distance Lullaby

                                                  Cocteau Twins

                                                  Milk & Kisses - 2024 Reissue

                                                    This re-issue of the Cocteau Twins 1996 album faithfully replicates the original 1996 Fontana Records UK release and is pressed onto high quality 140g vinyl.

                                                    Cocteau Twins – vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist Robin Guthrie, and bassist Simon Raymonde – formed in Grangemouth, Scotland in the late 70s. The brainchild of Guthrie and original bassist Will Heggie, by 1981 they had added Fraser and the following year signed to 4AD, one of the most illustrious of the indie labels. With Raymonde replacing Heggie in 1983, the trio went on to create some of the most unique and otherworldly music of the 80s, built around Guthrie's chiming guitar and Fraser's unmistakable soprano.

                                                    By the early 90s, the group had just released their most successful album, the commercial Heaven Or Las Vegas, after which they moved to Mercury imprint Fontana, joining the likes of The Fall and the House Of Love.

                                                    Although not intended so at the time, Milk & Kisses – released in March 1996 – became the final album issued the group. The trio worked separately but effectively – Raymonde would work in the daytime, Guthrie at night, leaving Fraser to add her vocals. Because of the aftershocks of her split with Guthrie, lyrics came easy to her. Led by the beautiful, hushed Top 30 single Tishbite and containing fan favourites Violane and Eperdu, Milk & Kisses has tended to be overlooked within the group's canon, and therefore is ripe for investigation. Although work had begun on a follow up album to Milk & Kisses, the Cocteau Twins split up in 1997.

                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                    Violaine 
                                                    Serpentskirt 
                                                    Tishbite 
                                                    Half-Gifts 
                                                    Calfskin Smack 
                                                    Rilkean Heart 
                                                    Ups 
                                                    Eperdu 
                                                    Treasure Hiding 
                                                    Seekers Who Are Lovers

                                                    Lush

                                                    Split - 2023 Remaster

                                                      Originally Released June 13 1994. Featuring the singles “Desire Lines” and “Hypocrite,” Split is the second full studio album by Lush. Produced by Mike Hedges - famed for his work on The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds & Siouxsie and the Banshees’s A Kiss in the Dreamhouse – and mixed by Alan Moulder, Split sees the band hit a more direct sound whilst retaining their almost pitch-black feel.

                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                      1. Light From A Dead Star
                                                      2. Kiss Chase
                                                      3. Blackout
                                                      4. Hypocrite
                                                      5. Lovelife
                                                      6. Desire Lines
                                                      7. The Invisible Man
                                                      8. Undertow
                                                      9. Never-Never
                                                      10. Lit Up
                                                      11. Starlust
                                                      12. When I Die

                                                      Lush

                                                      Lovelife - 2023 Remaster

                                                        Originally Released March 5 1996. Lush’s final studio album, Lovelife, dealt “Britpop the feminist counterpoint it sorely needed,” (Pitchfork). Produced by Pete Bartlett (Therapy?, Kitchens of Distinction), it features three of the band’s biggest singles in “Single Girl,” “Ladykillers” and “500 (Shake Baby Shake),” with Jarvis Cocker also featured on first-half closer “Ciao!”.

                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                        1. Ladykillers
                                                        2. Heavenly Nobodies
                                                        3. 500
                                                        4. I’ve Been Here Before
                                                        5. Papasan
                                                        6. Single Girl
                                                        7. Ciao!
                                                        8. Tralala
                                                        9. Last Night
                                                        10. Runaway
                                                        11. The Childcatcher
                                                        12. Olympia

                                                        Lush

                                                        Spooky - 2023 Remaster

                                                          Originally Released January 27, 1992. With a few EPs and a mini-album (Scar) having set the scene, Spooky is Lush’s 1992 debut studio album. A key text for British indie music after the turn of a decade, it was produced by label mate Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and features the singles “Nothing Natural,” “For Love” and “Superblast!.”



                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                          1. Stray
                                                          2. Nothing Natural
                                                          3. Tiny Smiles
                                                          4. Covert
                                                          5. Ocean
                                                          6. For Love
                                                          7. Superblast!
                                                          8. Untogether
                                                          9. Fantasy
                                                          10. Take
                                                          11. Laura
                                                          12. Monochrome

                                                          Big Thief

                                                          Masterpiece - 2023 Edition

                                                            Big Thief will release a new edition of their 2016 debut album Masterpiece. For the first time on 4AD, the album containing much-loved songs ‘Paul’, ‘Real Love’ and title track ‘Masterpiece’, will be remastered and reissued on reVinyl pressing from 8 December.

                                                            Masterpiece was recorded in July 2015 at an old house that they turned into a studio on Lake Champlain with producer Andrew Sarlo and engineer James Krivchenia (who would go on to become a full-time Big Thief member). The resultant debut Big Thief studio album is filled with characters and visceral narratives, songs that pivot in the space of a few words. Adrianne Lenker's voice and guitar playing speak of rich emotional territory with grace and insight. In her words, the record tracks, "the masterpiece of existence, which is always folding into itself, people attempting to connect, to both shake themselves awake and to shake off the numbness of certain points in their life. The interpretations might be impressionistic or surrealistic, but they're grounded in simple things." It soars on what Big Thief fan Sharon Van Etten called "...a real journey, with intelligent stories and twist-and-turn melodies."

                                                            The National

                                                            Laugh Track

                                                              The surprise companion to The National's April release First Two Pages of Frankenstein, Laugh Track is the band's most freewheeling, all-hands-on-deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory Laugh Track is both the product of that faith and a new statement of intent. Reveling in the license to radically upend its creative process, The National honed most of this material in live performances on tour, and captured those invigorated versions in impromptu sessions at producer Tucker Martine’s Portland studio. Two nights later in Vancouver, the nearly eight-minute album closer “Smoke Detector” was recorded during soundcheck, completing a body of work bristling with spontaneity and vintage rock energy that makes a perfect complement to the songs found on its more introspective predecessor.

                                                              STAFF COMMENTS

                                                              Laura says: Released as a companion album to ‘First Two Pages Of Frankenstein’, ‘Laugh Track’ was written during the same sessions but feels more dynamic, largely due to Bryan reverting to ‘real’ rather than programmed drums. After all, it’s his fluid, scatter-shot drumming that has always been the perfect foil for Matt’s melancholy. This LP sounds much more like The National we love and closing track “Smoke Detector” possibly hints at the future direction of their evolution.

                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                              Alphabet City
                                                              Deep End (Paul’s In Pieces)
                                                              Weird Goodbyes Feat. Bon Iver
                                                              Turn Off The House
                                                              Dreaming
                                                              Laugh Track Feat. Phoebe Bridgers
                                                              Space Invader
                                                              Hornets
                                                              Coat On A Hook
                                                              Tour Manager
                                                              Crumble Feat. Rosanne Cash
                                                              Smoke Detector

                                                              Tkay Maidza

                                                              Sweet Justice

                                                                Tkay Maidza, the first female rapper signed to 4AD, releases her highly anticipated new album, Sweet Justice.

                                                                “I’m never choosing compliance,” a defiant Maidza utters ‘Ring-A-Ling’; a warning from the Zimbabwean-born, Australian-raised, Los Angeles-based rapper, singer and producer and a mantra for Sweet Justice. Produced by Two Fresh, Tkay says of ‘Ring-A-Ling’, “I wanted to make an empowering song that tells others that my biggest focus are my goals.”

                                                                The result of a dark night of the soul—and ensuing epiphany—that led to a series of professional and personal reckonings, Sweet Justice isn’t a revenge album, but it does stem from a profound sense of karma. In a traditional sense, it’s a breakup record: about Tkay splitting off from her self-doubt and warped sense of self; the toxic figures that populated the last chapter of her life; and the idea that she should stick to any one lane.

                                                                After severing ties with old friends, she found some new ones on the same creative wavelength: Canadian producers Stint and Kaytranada, and fellow Australian Flume, all of whom contribute production. Sweet Justice is an album that embodies the beautiful contradictions of Tkay’s art: it’s a coming-of-age record by someone who’s mastered the game; an album about karmic justice and accountability that’s bright, breezy and incredibly fun. In Tkay’s mind, it’s a rebirth album, a record about harnessing the feminine power that was innate in her the whole time.

                                                                Tkay Maidza says, “Sweet Justice was a way for me to channel my emotions from what I’ve experienced in the last two years. It’s a diary of things and thoughts I’ve kept to myself. Making the record was a healing experience and I’m grateful to have worked with producers who have inspired me throughout my career.”



                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                1. Love And Other Drugs
                                                                2. WUACV
                                                                3. Out Of Luck (ft. Lolo Zouaï & Amber Mark)
                                                                4. What Ya Know
                                                                5. Won One
                                                                6. Love Again
                                                                7. WASP
                                                                8. Ghost!
                                                                9. Ring-a-Ling
                                                                10. Free Throws
                                                                11. Silent Assassin
                                                                12. Our Way
                                                                13. Gone To The West (ft. Duckwrth)
                                                                14. Walking On Air

                                                                Brendan Perry

                                                                Eye Of The Hunter / Live At The I.C.A.

                                                                  Some fifteen years after Dead Can Dance’s self-titled debut, Brendan Perry first stepped out on his own in 1999 with the wondrous eight track album, Eye of the Hunter.

                                                                  Having mutually disbanded Dead Can Dance so he and Lisa Gerrard could focus on their own material (a hiatus that would last seven years between playing live shows and sixteen between making albums), Brendan’s debut built on his renown as a solo performer, having often played just he and an acoustic guitar during his band’s otherworldly live shows. Indeed, Dead Can Dance’s first official live album, 1994’s Toward The Within, captures just this with three Brendan solo tracks helping to set the scene for what came next.

                                                                  Recorded at Brendan's Quivvy Church studio in County Cavan in Ireland and backed by the band of Liam Bradley (drums), Glen Garrett (bass guitar) and Martin Quinn (pedal steel), Brendan performs the guitar, a 12-string guitar, mandolin and keys to achieve a rich, gothic sound while the album’s incredible production elevates his vocals to Scott Walker and Tim Buckley levels of delivery; two clear influences, the latter’s ‘I Must Have Been Blind Here’ is thoughtfully covered here.

                                                                  A record that has been out of print on vinyl since its release in 1999, people have been asking for it to be repressed for long enough. Having been mastered at Abbey Road, fans will be delighted to hear that not only is Eye of the Hunter finally being reissued but that it’s also been expanded to include Live at the I.C.A. The single ‘Happy Time (Live at the I.C.A.)’, a Tim Buckley cover, is released today from the latter. A true collectible, this extra album has previously only been available on a rare as hen’s teeth promotional cassette, recorded during 4AD’s infamous 13 Year Itch residency at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1993. Chris Bigg’s fantastic art remains front and centre, upgraded to a gatefold sleeve for the LP with the coloured vinyl matching the album’s palette (Eye of the Hunter on transparent teal and Live at the I.C.A. on seafoam green). 

                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                  Eye Of The Hunter

                                                                  1. Saturday’s Child
                                                                  2. Voyage Of Bran
                                                                  3. Medusa
                                                                  4. Sloth
                                                                  5. I Must Have Been Blind
                                                                  6. Captive Heart
                                                                  7. Death Will Be My Bride
                                                                  8. Archangel 

                                                                           
                                                                  Live At The I.C.A.

                                                                  1. Alone / American Dreaming
                                                                  2. Sarabande
                                                                  3. Sloth   
                                                                  4. Chase The Blues
                                                                  5. Captive Heart
                                                                  6. Happy Time
                                                                  7. Don’t Fade Away

                                                                  Big Thief

                                                                  Vampire Empire / Born For Loving You

                                                                    Limited, first pressing available on Eco Vinyl, featuring the tracks "Vampire Empire" and "Born for Loving You".

                                                                    Big Thief present new single, ‘Vampire Empire’, off their forthcoming ‘Vampire Empire’ / ‘Born For Loving You’ 7” out on 20 October. This year, the song took on a life of its own after a performance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and has become a live fan favorite.

                                                                    Recorded and produced by Dom Monks at Guissona, Spain’s Teatre de cal Eril Studio during a recent tour, ‘Vampire Empire’ speaks to the beautiful complexity of gender identity and breaking destructive internal cycles. Of the song, Adrianne Lenker adds, “For me, it’s about getting out of toxic internal patterns – leaving the empire of energy drains that obscure pure essence, learning about what healthy boundaries are, and finding the power to implement them for the possibility of giving and receiving (both inwardly and outwardly) unbroken and infinite Love.”

                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                    Vampire Empire
                                                                    Born For Loving You

                                                                    Pale Saints

                                                                    In Ribbons - Expanded 30th Anniversary Reissue

                                                                      The 1990 debut album from Pale Saints, The Comforts of Madness, is an outstanding record that owed as much to post-punk and L.A.’s Paisley Underground scene than it did to shoegaze. The Sunday Times called it “an unintended indie manifesto: music that is at once wayward and concise, dissonant and beautiful.”

                                                                      Shortly after its release and in need of a second live guitarist, Lush founding member Meriel Barham joined the Leeds trio of Ian Masters, Graeme Naysmith and Chris Cooper, bringing a new dynamic to the band.

                                                                      Having previously worked well with producer Hugh Jones (Echo & The Bunnyman, Modern English, The Sound), he did a brilliant job recording their second album, In Ribbons (1992), despite some studio tensions. Brooklyn Vegan said in a recent celebration of the album that it was the “push and pull between Masters’ outsider tendencies and (the rest’s) commercial interests that makes In Ribbons so good. If some of the wild, ragged edges of Comforts of Madness have been smoothed off, the album makes up for it with scope and beauty. And there’s still no shortage of weird.”

                                                                      Missing its original release date last year due to Covid delays and a production plant in meltdown, In Ribbons is finally getting the 30th Anniversary celebration it deserves with a special double LP / CD release – the first disc be- ing the UK version of the album, the second a bonus disc of never before heard demos (including their first attempt at Slapp Happy’s ‘Blue Flower’ and Ian’s 4 track recording of ‘Kinky Love’) and two brass band versions by The Tintwistle Band.

                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                      Tracklisting (2LP/2CD)
                                                                      A1 - Throwing Back The Apple
                                                                      A2 - Ordeal
                                                                      A3- Thread Of Light
                                                                      A4 - Shell
                                                                      A5 - There Is No Day
                                                                      A6 - Hunted
                                                                      B1 - Hair Shoes
                                                                      B2 - Babymaker
                                                                      B3 - Liquid
                                                                      B4 - Neverending Night
                                                                      B5 - Featherframe
                                                                      B6 - A Thousand Stars Burst Open
                                                                      C1 - Babymaker (Demo) *
                                                                      C2 - Kinky Love (Demo) *
                                                                      C3 - Hair Shoes (Demo) *
                                                                      C4 - Shell (Demo) *
                                                                      C5 - Hunted (Demo) *
                                                                      C6 - Featherframe (Demo) *
                                                                      D1 - Blue Flower (Demo) *
                                                                      D2 - Throwing Back The Apple (Demo) *
                                                                      D3 - Ordeal (Demo) *
                                                                      D3 - Untitled Instrumental (Demo) *
                                                                      D4 - A Thousand Stars Burst Open (Tintwistle Band Version) +
                                                                      D5 - A Revelation (Tintwistle Band Version) +
                                                                      * = Previously Unreleased

                                                                      Tracklisting (LP Black Vinyl)
                                                                      A1 - Throwing Back The Apple
                                                                      A2 - Ordeal
                                                                      A3 - Thread Of Light
                                                                      A4 - Shell
                                                                      A5 - There Is No Day
                                                                      A6 - Hunted
                                                                      B1 - Hair Shoes
                                                                      B2 - Babymaker
                                                                      B3 - Liquid
                                                                      B4 - Neverending Night
                                                                      B5 - Featherframe
                                                                      B6 - A Thousand Stars Burst Open

                                                                      The Breeders

                                                                      Last Splash - 30th Anniversary Analog Edition

                                                                        Recorded by the ‘classic’ Breeders line-up of Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson, and featuring the infectiously appealing ‘Cannonball’, Last Splash immediately became an alt-rock classic, achieving platinum status in the UK and US, and is ranked in Pitchfork’s Top 100 Records of the 1990s.

                                                                        To celebrate this anniversary, the album has been remastered from the original analog tapes – previously thought to be lost – a process which also brought to light two unreleased tracks, a discovery that will delight fans.

                                                                        Entitled Last Splash (the 30th Anniversary Original Analog Edition), this special edition will span two 12” 45rpm vinyl discs, plus an exclusive, one-sided etched 12” disc containing two forgotten tracks from the original Last Splash sessions: ‘Go Man Go’, a track that Kim co-wrote with Black Francis, and ‘Divine Mascis’, a version of ‘Divine Hammer’ with lead vocals provided courtesy of Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis.

                                                                        For this special edition, the original, iconic sleeve art by the late visionary designer Vaughan Oliver has been gloriously reimagined by his long-time design partner Chris Bigg.


                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                        1. New Year
                                                                        2. Cannonball
                                                                        3. Invisible Man
                                                                        4. No Aloha
                                                                        5. Roi
                                                                        6. Do You Love Me Now?
                                                                        7. Flipside
                                                                        8. I Just Wanna Get Along
                                                                        9. Mad Lucas
                                                                        10. Divine Hammer
                                                                        11. S.O.S
                                                                        12. Hag
                                                                        13. Saints
                                                                        14. Drivin’ On 9
                                                                        15. Roi (Reprise)

                                                                        12” Included With LP's
                                                                        1. Go Man Go
                                                                        2. Divine Mascis

                                                                        Anjimile

                                                                        The King

                                                                          Anjimile Chithambo, better known as Anjimile, announces his new album, The King, out September 8th, his first full-length since 2020’s breakthrough Giver Taker.

                                                                          Highlighting the artistic shift from Giver Taker to now, ‘The King’ opens with a lofty, melodic choir, an intro that belies the song’s motives. Suddenly, sinister arpeggios interrupt the reverie, and the voices grow darkly serious. Deeply steeped in the confusion, grief, and rage of being Black in America, ‘The King’ pushes back against the tired adage, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” hissing, “What don ’t kill you almost killed you// What don’t fill you//pains you// drains you.”

                                                                          “If Giver Taker was an album of prayers, The King is an album of curses.” In his second album, Anjimile continues exploring what it means to be a Black trans person in America. The brutally honest reflection of 2020’s deadly summer is less reminiscent of the pink cloud of early sobriety and more rooted in the reality of seeing brutality with clear eyes. Drawing from influences ranging from religion, Phillip Glass, and lived experiences, the album is a grand step forward for Anjimile.

                                                                          Nearly every sound you hear on The King comes from two instruments: an acoustic guitar and Anjimile’s own voice. Other than a few beautiful contributions from Justine Bowe, Brad Allen Williams, Sam Gendel, and James Krivchenia (Big Thief), the album is the result of a year in LA working intimately with Grammy and Juno winner Shawn Everett. 

                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                          1. The King
                                                                          2. Mother
                                                                          3. Anybody
                                                                          4. Genesis
                                                                          5. Animal
                                                                          6. Father
                                                                          7. Harley
                                                                          8. Black Hole
                                                                          9. I Pray
                                                                          10. The Right

                                                                          Buck Meek

                                                                          Haunted Mountain

                                                                            Texas-bred singer/songwriter and Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek announces his new album, Haunted Mountain, his first release for 4AD.

                                                                            Following his beloved 2021 album, Two Saviors, Haunted Mountain marks Meek’s third solo album. Haunted Mountain is about love and… something other. Something bigger than love, something that doesn’t challenge love exactly but stands in contrast to it. A soulfulness, or a soul-seeking fullness. Meek says that loves songs are the hardest write. “Not break-up songs, but an actual love song written in earnest? That is taboo now,” he says. “Sometimes it can feel like all the great love songs have already been written.”

                                                                            Lead single ‘Haunted Mountain’ is anchored by sweet lyrics penned by Meek and Holland, who is also from Texas and shares co-writing credits on five of Haunted Mountain’s 11 songs. The first two verses and chorus of ‘Haunted Mountain’ were written by Holland as a love song to Mount Shasta in northern California, with the final verse written by Meek, together seeking reciprocity with nature. “It’s about being humbled by the thing you’re drawing power from only at which point an actual, fair relationship begins,” he says. Propelled by the pristine chemistry of his band, ‘Haunted Mountain’ is presented alongside a Riley Engemoen-directed video that captures the group’s in-studio magic.

                                                                            560 miles from Meek’s hometown of Wimberly, TX, the Franklin Mountains – or more reverently named, Sierras de los Mansos – rise over the tops of the endless acres of pecan trees that surround Sonic Round in the border of Tornillo, where Haunted Mountain was recorded. The songs were written in mountains: by sold springs in the Serra de Estela of Portugal, on the submerged volcano of Milos in the Cyclades, Valle Onsernone in the Swiss Alps (where Haunted Mountain’s cover photo was taken), and the Santa Monica range where Meek now calls home – all where his new love was born.

                                                                            On Haunted Mountain, love often assumes a natural form – crystal ball dew-drops, green rivers and grasses, tears bottled. Sometimes it becomes artificial – mood rings, earrings, a pair of jeans, motorcycles and spacecraft. Sometimes cosmic – “I fell into a black hole with the hot flux of hazel” (from ‘Paradise’). Love is a consciousness here, interacting with the lovers, greeting them, watching them sometimes, becoming them sometimes. It extends beyond romance, examining the inexhaustible bond between mother and sun, and asks – is love a form of magic? “When you are in love, it inhabits your environment, animates the inanimate, charging everything around you with a sense of meaning,” he says. “and not just new love; also love of many years.”

                                                                            Since Buck’s self-titled full-length album, his band has remained consistent – Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), and Mat Davidson (pedal steel, bass on Buck Meek and Two Saviors). In the year or so leading up to recording Haunted Mountain, they were joined by Ken Woodward (bass) as well as Meek’s brother, Dylan, who joined them for the session on piano and synths. Produced by the band’s own Davidson, Haunted Mountain was recorded and mixed in two weeks by Adrian Olsen, who also performed the sound manipulation via modular synthesizer that can be heard throughout the album.

                                                                            One intention was to make a hi-fi album that contrasted with the intentionally lo-fi approach of Two Saviors, while preserving the intimacy. Recorded live to two-inch tape, the group played together in one big room, with no headphones. In Davidson’s words, “the music here is an expression of a group. I asked for the job because I felt strongly that we shouldn’t bring in someone from outside the band. Otherwise, the only personal desire I had was that we be able to explore space, that we let the music open up and slow down in contrast to previous records – not in terms of tempo but rather overall movement, information between the beats.”

                                                                            Meek believes that all of the great love songs have not been written yet. In between the lines of Haunted Mountain, we hear that love, in every form, is the creation of home, from within – forever leaving one to find another.

                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                            1. Mood Ring
                                                                            2. Haunted Mountain
                                                                            3. Paradise
                                                                            4. Cyclades
                                                                            5. Secret Side
                                                                            6. Didn’t Know You Then
                                                                            7. Undae Dunes
                                                                            8. Where You’re Coming From
                                                                            9. Lullabies
                                                                            10. Lagrimas
                                                                            11. The Rainbow

                                                                            Cumgirl8

                                                                            Phantasea Farm EP

                                                                              New York City four-piece c*mgirl8 (aka cg8) announce their debut 4AD EP 'Phantasea Pharm'. Made up of Lida Fox (bass), Veronika Vilim (guitar), Chase Lombardo (drums) and Avishag Rodrigues (guitar), phantasea pharm was born out of an obsession with Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Old McDonald’ ahead of a show in Charlottesville, Virginia. The band decided to pay homage. Vilim dressed up in a cow leotard with pig accessories, Lombardo in a g-string and apron that read ‘The Grillfather,’ Rodrigues became a lawn mower, and Fox took on the role of a sexy rooster. “We went on stage that night and told everyone we were a ‘Fantasy Farm.’” They knew then that would become the basis of their new EP.

                                                                              Last month’s single ‘cicciolina’ was a perfect introduction, a tribute to the Hungarian-Italian pornstar turned politician Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina. The new single ‘gothgirl1’ opens another chapter. Written with Nick Launay (Kate Bush, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Slits), during the band’s stay at Barbizon, “a magical artist hotel nestled on the edge of a mushroom forest,” the result is a four-minute cut of hypnotizing eroticism that perfectly captures the dark mysticism of its genesis.

                                                                              phantasea pharm follows last year’s standalone single ‘dumb bitch’ and EP’s c*mgirl8 (2020) and RIPc*mgirl8 (2021), and arrives in the midst of their headlining EU/UK tour and festival run that has seen them play Primavera, The Great Escape, London Calling, and more. c*mgirl8 will then make their return to UK later this Summer joining the line-up for Greenman and Core Festival after having opened for Le Tigre in North America.

                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                              1. Cicciolina
                                                                              2. Dead Pixels
                                                                              3. Cursed Angel
                                                                              4. Picture Party Ft. Christeene
                                                                              5. Gothgirl1
                                                                              6. Pritney Llc

                                                                              Lush

                                                                              Split - 2023 Reissue

                                                                                Originally Released June 13 1994. Featuring the singles “Desire Lines” and “Hypocrite,” Split is the second full studio album by Lush. Produced by Mike Hedges - famed for his work on The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds & Siouxsie and the Banshees’s A Kiss in the Dreamhouse – and mixed by Alan Moulder, Split sees the band hit a more direct sound whilst retaining their almost pitch-black feel.

                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                A1. Light From A Dead Star
                                                                                A2. Kiss Chase
                                                                                A3. Blackout
                                                                                A4. Hypocrite
                                                                                A5. Lovelife
                                                                                A6. Desire Lines
                                                                                A7. The Invisible Man
                                                                                B1. Undertow
                                                                                B2. Never-Never
                                                                                B3. Lit Up
                                                                                B4. Starlust
                                                                                B5. When I Die

                                                                                Lush

                                                                                Spooky - 2023 Reissue

                                                                                  Originally Released January 27, 1992. With a few EPs and a mini-album (Scar) having set the scene, Spooky is Lush’s 1992 debut studio album. A key text for British indie music after the turn of a decade, it was produced by label mate Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and features the singles “Nothing Natural,” “For Love” and “Superblast!.”

                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                  A1. Stray
                                                                                  A2. Nothing Natural
                                                                                  A3. Tiny Smiles
                                                                                  A4. Covert
                                                                                  A5. Ocean
                                                                                  A6. For Love
                                                                                  B1. Superblast!
                                                                                  B2. Untogether
                                                                                  B3. Fantasy
                                                                                  B4. Take
                                                                                  B5. Laura
                                                                                  B6. Monochrome

                                                                                  Lush

                                                                                  Lovelife - 2023 Reissue

                                                                                    Originally Released March 5 1996. Lush’s final studio album, Lovelife, dealt “Britpop the feminist counterpoint it sorely needed,” (Pitchfork). Produced by Pete Bartlett (Therapy?, Kitchens of Distinction), it features three of the band’s biggest singles in “Single Girl,” “Ladykillers” and “500 (Shake Baby Shake),” with Jarvis Cocker also featured on first-half closer “Ciao!”.



                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                    A1. Ladykillers
                                                                                    A2. Heavenly Nobodies
                                                                                    A3. 500
                                                                                    A4. I’ve Been Here Before
                                                                                    A5. Papasan
                                                                                    A6. Single Girl
                                                                                    A7. Ciao!
                                                                                    B1. Tralala
                                                                                    B2. Last Night
                                                                                    B3. Runaway
                                                                                    B4. The Childcatcher
                                                                                    B5. Olympia

                                                                                    Air Miami

                                                                                    Me. Me. Me. - 2023 Reissue

                                                                                      Double LP reissue of Air Miami’s lost-classic 1995 album, ‘Me. Me. Me.’ Remastered from original 2” tapes and now including 3 extra tracks. This one time pressing comes on coloured vinyl and in a gatefold sleeve.

                                                                                      Made up of UNREST’s Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross, Air Miami formed shortly after the D.C. indie rock mainstay’s demise in 1995, and together with drummer Gabriel Stout and producer Guy Fixsen (The Breeders, My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab), they travelled to their namesake land of Miami to record the entirety of Me. Me. Me. over the month of May at the famed Criteria Studios; a place where James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC and countless more have recorded classic works. The album was then mixed at a studio in London where labelmates Lush were recording their 1996 LP Lovelife at the same time.

                                                                                      Nearly thirty years on, this deluxe reissue sees the 1995 album expanded to include all sixteen tracks from the album sessions, three of which are new to the tracklist: ‘Warm Miami May’ (not on original LP), ‘Pucker’ (previously unreleased), and the full version of ‘See-Through Plastic’ (edited version only previously seen on the EP). The record also features singles ‘I Hate Milk’ and ‘Seabird,’ a track that found new life recently when covered by current 4AD artist Maria Somerville, her first release for the label and part of the label’s 40th anniversary compilation Bills & Aches & Blues.


                                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                                      1. I Hate Milk
                                                                                      2. World Cup Fever
                                                                                      3. Seabird
                                                                                      4. Warm Miami May (not On Original LP)
                                                                                      5. Special Angel
                                                                                      6. Afternoon Train
                                                                                      7. Dolphin Expressway
                                                                                      8. Sweet As A Candy Bar
                                                                                      9. Pucker (previously Unreleased)
                                                                                      10. You Sweet Little Heartbreaker
                                                                                      11. Neely
                                                                                      12. Bubble Shield
                                                                                      13. See-Through Plastic (full Version)
                                                                                      14. The Event Horizon
                                                                                      15. Definitely Beachy
                                                                                      16. Reprise

                                                                                      The National

                                                                                      First Two Pages Of Frankenstein

                                                                                        Anchored by evocative melodies and an enthralling lyrical narrative, First Two Pages of Frankenstein signals a thrilling new chapter in the band’s beloved discography. The 11-song album was produced by The National at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York and features guest appearances by Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens.

                                                                                        The follow-up to 2019’s top five hit album I Am Easy To Find, First Two Pages of Frankenstein was initially stalled while lead singer Matt Berninger navigated “a very dark spot where I couldn’t come up with lyrics or melodies at all, and that period lasted for over a year. Even though we’d always been anxious and argued quite a lot whenever we were working on a record, this was the first time it ever felt like maybe things really had come to an end.” Instead, The National “managed to come back together and approach everything from a different angle, and because of that we arrived at what feels like a new era for the band,” according to guitarist/pianist Bryce Dessner, whose bandmates also include his brother Aaron (guitar/piano/bass) as well as brothers Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).

                                                                                        First Two Pages of Frankenstein channels the group’s revitalized chemistry into a body of work that beautifully balances elegant musicality with the National’s more idiosyncratic impulses. Tracks such as “Grease in Your Hair” and “Ice Machines” were road-tested in 2022 before they were recorded, allowing the band to hone the material in real time (another song, “Weird Goodbyes” featuring Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, was released as a standalone track last August). “To me the power of this record has to do with the intentionality and structure of the music meeting with a lot of accidental magic,” says Aaron Dessner.

                                                                                        Swift duets with Berninger on the luminous “The Alcott,” continuing her recent string of collaborations with members of The National on her chart-topping albums folklore and evermore and Aaron Dessner’s Big Red Machine project. The song finds Berninger and Swift inhabiting the roles of a couple attempting to resurrect a troubled relationship, forging a finely drawn story nearly novelistic in scope. “It’s about two people with a long history returning to a place and trying to relive a certain moment in time,” says Berninger. “It’s got the feeling of a last-ditch effort to hold onto the relationship, but there’s a hint of something positive where you can see the beginnings of a reconnection.”

                                                                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                        Liam says: Succeeding on from the beautiful yet gut-punching 'I Am Easy To Find', 'First Two Pages Of Frankenstein' is another exquisite slice of moving and expansive indie from Berninger and co. Boasting huge guest spots from Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens and Phoebe Bridgers, this record further cements The National as the generational talent we've always known them to be!

                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                        Once Upon A Poolside (feat. Sufjan Stevens)
                                                                                        Eucalyptus
                                                                                        New Order T-Shirt
                                                                                        This Isn't Helping (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
                                                                                        Tropic Morning News
                                                                                        Alien
                                                                                        The Alcott (feat. Taylor Swift)
                                                                                        Grease In Your Hair
                                                                                        Ice Machines
                                                                                        Your Mind Is Not Your Friend (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
                                                                                        Send For Me 

                                                                                        Daughter

                                                                                        Stereo Mind Game

                                                                                          Elena Tonra isn’t a keen swimmer, but oceans pervade Stereo Mind Game. It’s a matter of distance. Daughter’s third record, the band’s first studio album for seven years, grapples with what it means to be separated, from loved ones and too from yourself.

                                                                                          “Oh it will likely kill me / That I must live / Without you / Because I can’t swim,” Tonra sings, whisper-like, on “Isolation”. It’s a classic Daughter song that basks elegantly in deepest despair. Yet here there’s a sense of something beyond despair too. “I’ll compose myself / I’ll get over it,” Tonra continues. On Stereo Mind Game, Daughter tend to sorrow by fixing it in time. Doing so makes it more real, like the flower – dried, pressed and remembered – on the album’s cover.

                                                                                          Daughter – the trio comprising Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella – formed in 2010. After releasing two studio albums, If You Leave (2013) and Not to Disappear (2016), and the video game soundtrack Music From Before the Storm (2017), they chose to take some time off. But not before jamming together in Los Angeles, in between a support tour with The National and their first headline shows in South America. It was here that a new album started to germinate.

                                                                                          Over the next couple of years – during which they worked on their own projects, including Tonra’s solo record as Ex:Re – Daughter met occasionally to write together in studios in London, Portland and in San Diego, where Haefeli lived for six months in 2019. The record’s central romantic figure is someone Tonra met out there when she visited from London. They shared a significant connection, but she knew the Atlantic lay between them.

                                                                                          It’s this that she sings about on “Be On Your Way”, a longing but resilient song about an enduring connection that is also undefinable. Where previous Daughter songs mourned old relationships, here Tonra is accepting of whatever the future brings. “A friend said to me recently: just because something ends, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real,” she says. Haefeli likens the revelation to the pressed flower image: “It’s still there. It still exists. It grew that spring.”

                                                                                          Daughter began recording the album’s twelve songs in earnest in 2021. Haefeli, who lives in Bristol, met with Tonra at Middle Farm Studios in Devon. Aguilella, who is based in Portland, Oregon, recorded his drum parts in Bocce Studio in Vancouver, Washington. Haefeli produced a number of the songs, while Tonra produced “Junkmail”. They co-produced the rest.

                                                                                          The longing to close physical distances – a feeling that only grew during the pandemic – has seeped into many of these tracks. On “Wish I Could Cross the Sea” we hear voice notes from Tonra’s young niece and nephew, who live in Italy. “(Missed Calls)” features another voice note, in which a friend describes a dream. Fed through some modular effects, it becomes glitchy, and haunting. These messages, attempts at connection from loved ones you’re unable to see, “can pull you out of the well”, Tonra says – but only if you pick up the phone.

                                                                                          When you let others in, beauty can arise. Deep feeling comes from the bows of the 12 Ensemble, the London-based string orchestra, who play on many of the album’s tracks. Arranged by Haefeli and Tonra, and orchestrated by Josephine Stephenson, their parts were – fittingly – recorded at The Pool, a space in Bermondsey, south London, which is a former swimming spot. A brass quartet also brings a new sonic warmth to “Neptune” and “To Rage”.

                                                                                          And for the first time, Tonra’s is not a lone voice. On “Dandelion”, which glistens with Haefeli’s chime-like guitars and Aguilella’s rousing drums, Tonra plays call and response with herself. Haefeli leads some vocal lines on the exhilarating “Future Lover”, and on “Neptune”, a choir appears. These vocalists are the string players of the 12 Ensemble. “It’s one of my favourite moments of the record,” Tonra says, “when suddenly, the crowd joins. It’s a very lonely song. But even when I’ve felt the most alone, arms have reached out to me.”

                                                                                          In order to maintain relationships with others, we must first make peace with ourselves. “Party” recounts a significant moment: the night that made Tonra realise she wanted to give up alcohol. It’s a topic she has written about before, but she needed distance to see it clearly. Haefeli borrows her image: “This time you had climbed out of the well,” he says, “and were looking back down.” It’s the song she’s most proud of, and the one that lends its lyrics to the album title (“Some stereo mind game I play with myself”), which refers to the conflicting voices we all have in our heads.

                                                                                          While Daughter’s previous work found power in emotional honesty, Stereo Mind Game welcomes opposing feelings. “It’s about not working in absolutes,” Haefeli says. After more than a decade spent depicting the darkest emotions, Daughter have made their most optimistic record yet.

                                                                                          STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                          Barry says: Though the shoegaze influence has always been clear in Daughter's work, the previous two LP's (And Ex:Re, Tonra's solo project) have leant more towards post-rock than the decidedly more upbeat and sonically rich 'stereo Mind Game'. It's an assured and confident step in a new direction for Daughter.

                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                          Intro
                                                                                          Be On Your Way
                                                                                          Party
                                                                                          Dandelion
                                                                                          Neptune
                                                                                          Swim Back
                                                                                          Junkmail
                                                                                          Future Lover
                                                                                          (Missed Calls)
                                                                                          Isolation
                                                                                          To Rage
                                                                                          Wish I Could Cross The Sea

                                                                                          Lucinda Chua

                                                                                          Yian

                                                                                            If Chua’s 2022 release "Golden," written from the perspective of her younger self, was the meditative prelude to the world of YIAN, then her new single “Echo” places us firmly in its first chapter. A pop song about ancestral trauma, “Echo” is the antihero’s journey, walking the line between respect for the past and the freedom to carve out a new future. (“I won’t carry your shame / Won’t be your echo again… I couldn’t be anyone else / I look to you, I see myself”). Chua delivers with her uniquely intimate, yet otherworldly sound in this self-produced and engineered song, capturing sensuous echoing harmonies and delicate soul-infused piano.

                                                                                            Following intensive studies in Chinese dance forms, Chua joined forces with film director Jade Ang Jackman and movement director Chantel Foo to create the visual for “Echo”; Chua’s take on a choreographed pop MV. The short film is a moving and innovative homage to Chinese fan dance and martial arts; an internal journey through the shifting seasons of emotional weather. Grounded by a stone circle, Chua dances with her handmade Chinese silk fans as the mood shifts from thorny rose garden to blizzard. “Sometimes I think we are all just footprints in the snow,” Chua says.

                                                                                            “YIAN” (燕), means swallow in Chinese, and is part of “Siew Yian,” the name given to Chua by her parents to preserve her connection with her Chinese heritage. Just as the migratory songbird lives between places, so did Chua, the artist living in the in-between of the English, Malaysian and Chinese cultures that make up her heritage. In the absence of Mandarin as a mother tongue, music became a way to express the parts of herself that couldn’t be described in words; “YIAN” emerged as a way to heal.

                                                                                            A deeply introspective and fully realized vessel of creative expression (Chua self-produced and engineered eight of the ten tracks), “YIAN” emerges as less an album than a worldview, a commitment to learning and uncovering one’s own selfhood honed over Chua’s lifelong reconciliation with her own personal history and identity.

                                                                                            Through this process she found new language through which to express her experiences, language which lay in the practices she developed and the creative community with whom she built solidarity along the process: co-authoring visual identities with main collaborators Tash Tung, Jade Ang Jackman and Nhu Xuan Hua and set designers Lydia Chan, Jonquil Lawrence and Erin Tse. Chua also constructed the album’s physical language through dance with movement directors Chantel Foo and Duane Nasis, this expression shown most vividly through the short film made for “Echo,” out today.

                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                            1. Golden
                                                                                            2. Meditations On A Place
                                                                                            3. I Promise
                                                                                            4. You
                                                                                            5. An Ocean
                                                                                            6. Autumn Leaves Don't Come
                                                                                            7. Echo
                                                                                            8. Do You Know You Know
                                                                                            9. Grief Piece
                                                                                            10. Something Other Than Years

                                                                                            U.S. Girls

                                                                                            Bless This Mess

                                                                                              Bless This Mess is the highly anticipated eighth album by U.S. Girls, the nom de plume of North American multi-disciplinary and experimental pop artist Meg Remy. A dynamic suite of dexterous melodies and a nuanced artistic response to the complexities of motherhood, Bless This Mess was crafted in tandem with the conception and birth of Remy’s twin boys. It expands the sonic and thematic palette of U.S. Girls, fusing the muses of funk, mythology, and the radical disorientation of joy into an electric tapestry of anthems, aches, and awakenings.

                                                                                              As Remy’s body changed so did her voice; her diaphragm lost breathing room, adjusting to the growing lives inside. Many takes on Bless This Mess were tracked with the babies in utero, or in her arms. (She even samples her breast pump on the album’s poetic closing cut, “Pump”). The resulting performances are suffused by the physicality of this journey: more blood, more feelings, the interwoven wonders, and wounds of procreation.

                                                                                              The ten songs on Bless This Mess were pieced together stem by stem with a vast cast of collaborators (Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost!, Marker Starling, Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship, Basia Bulat, Roger Manning Jr. of Jellyfish and Beck,) and audio engineers (Neal H Pogue, Ken Sluiter, Steve Chahley, Maximilian Turnbull). Long-time collaborator, husband, and co-parent Turnbull played a key role facilitating these fluid muses. The production throughout is exquisite, warm, and wood-panelled, framing the voice, keys, bass, and rhythms in heightened textural harmony.

                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                              Only Daedalus
                                                                                              Just Space For Light
                                                                                              Screen Face
                                                                                              Futures Bet
                                                                                              So Typically Now
                                                                                              Bless This Mess
                                                                                              Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo)
                                                                                              R.I.P. Roy G. Biv
                                                                                              St. James Way
                                                                                              Pump

                                                                                              The Golden Dregs

                                                                                              On Grace & Dignity

                                                                                                4AD welcomes songwriter and producer Benjamin Woods and his project, the Golden Dregs, to the roster. Hailing from Cornwall – a county in south-west England that draws thousands of tourists on holiday, and where thousands of locals could never hope of affording one – Woods grew up with a keen awareness of that gap between idealism and reality. the Golden Dregs’ third album, On Grace & Dignity, is released on 10 February 2023 and considers his home and what it means to be shaped by a place – in this instance, Truro, Cornwall’s capital, home to a rare three-spired cathedral, a peaceful river and a lot of empty shops and flimsy out-of-town housing estates. Written, recorded and produced by Woods from his South London home and childhood bedroom in Truro, it was mixed by Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, Aldous Harding) who provided additional production.

                                                                                                On Grace & Dignity’s origins lie in winter 2020 when Woods lost his job in lockdown and moved back to his parents’ house. The only work he could get was as a labourer on a poorly run building site on the grimmest outskirts of Truro. “It was such a bleak winter – waist-deep in mud digging holes and rolling out turf on top of building waste, really grim stuff, which became the backdrop to the stories I was trying to write,” he adds, citing Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis and Richard Hugo as influences.

                                                                                                In among the personal reflections on loss of innocence and inferiority, Woods spins subtly interweaving narratives about survival, desperate acts of violence, loss and the limitations of community in the face of rapacious gentrification. Nevertheless, it is, appropriately for an album about home, somewhere you’ll want to spend a while. Life here proceeds at a graceful pace grounded by Woods’s deep voice, which seems to resonate from his feet as he delivers the sort of meticulously written lunar wisdom worthy of Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, or the tidy yet revelatory koans of Silver Jews’ David Berman.

                                                                                                For the On Grace & Dignity artwork, he’s commissioned Bristol-based model-maker Edie Lawrence to construct an HO-scale fictional Cornish town. Christened Polgras, the 8 ft by 4 ft model features a viaduct, an estuary, a supermarket, new-build houses and industrial buildings; every song from On Grace & Dignity is represented by a scene in the town. “There’s different parts of the experience of growing up in Cornwall in there,” he says. “Some of it was from me looking at it when I was down there that winter, and some of it was me harking back to the experience of growing up there. It’s defined by that sense of duality, of coexisting realities,” he explains. “You’re geographically so far away, and it has a strong identity of its own, as well as a different landscape. It’s so rugged and bleak, but beautiful – which is what I really like in music.” 

                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                1- Intro
                                                                                                2- American Airlines
                                                                                                3- How It Starts
                                                                                                4- Before We Fell From Grace
                                                                                                5- Not Even The Rain
                                                                                                6- Eulogy
                                                                                                7- Josephine
                                                                                                8- Vista
                                                                                                9- Sundown Lake
                                                                                                10- Beyond Reasonable Doubt 

                                                                                                Velvet Negroni

                                                                                                Bulli

                                                                                                  Created during a particularly tumultuous time in Nutzman’s life that involved drug abuse, bank fraud, and a house fire, it’s unsurprising that Bulli would echo his present state of mind. Bulli feels anticipatory, often frantic and manic but given the period of his life that it emerged from its songs glimmer with a pop sheen, as fragmentary soundscapes meld leftfield electronic sounds with alternative rock, power pop, even tender R&B and deft hip-hop.


                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                  CD Tracklisting
                                                                                                  1.  Pop Song 2
                                                                                                  2.  Never Said Peep
                                                                                                  3.  Pop Song 1
                                                                                                  4.  Sinker
                                                                                                  5.  Bell Clapper
                                                                                                  6.  Ebony Eggshell
                                                                                                  7.  Ballad Smaller
                                                                                                  8.  Shiny
                                                                                                  9.  Georgia
                                                                                                  10.  The Foreigner
                                                                                                  11.  Animal
                                                                                                  12.  Sub Tieties


                                                                                                  LP Tracklisting

                                                                                                  Side A
                                                                                                  A1.  Beginner**
                                                                                                  A2.  Never Said Peep**
                                                                                                  A3.  The Foreigner
                                                                                                  A4.  Pop Song 2
                                                                                                  A5.  Pop Song 1
                                                                                                  A6.  Bell Clapper
                                                                                                  A7.  Repedo
                                                                                                  A8.  Ballad Smaller

                                                                                                  Side B
                                                                                                  B1.  Shiny
                                                                                                  B2.  Legal Tender**
                                                                                                  B3.  Sinker
                                                                                                  B4.  Ebony Eggshell
                                                                                                  B5.  Georgia
                                                                                                  B6.  Over**
                                                                                                  B7.  Sub Tieties
                                                                                                  B8.  Animal

                                                                                                  (** Exclusive To Vinyl)

                                                                                                  Sohn

                                                                                                  Trust

                                                                                                    Having previously lived for extended periods in Vienna and Los Angeles, London-born SOHN now resides in the pine forests of Catalunya, Spain, and it is this new environment that inspired ‘Segre’. Named for the river that feeds into the Pyrenees in Northern Catalunya, SOHN explains, “during the last years of immense change and upheaval, following that river up to our mountain home has become my way of re-centring myself.” The single’s official video was directed by and stars Spanish dance duo LOOKATHINGSDIFFERENT.

                                                                                                    Trust marks a seismic shift in perception and direction for the solo artist, echoing SOHN’s new responsibility as the father of three children. Moving from Los Angeles to the serenity of Catalunya and the experience of parenthood changed his mindset. “I felt this kind of openness I hadn’t felt before, and I realised I couldn’t do it alone anymore - I was missing community and friendship in life and the creative process,” SOHN says. For the first time in his decade-long career the producer invited others to help him bring a new album to life, returning to LA (where he recorded Rennen) to work with Yakob, Mike Sonier, Chris Tabron, Jesse Boykins III, Ryan Linvill, Noah Le Gros and Emile Mosseri. Community, intimacy, family, and openness are key themes on Trust as the British producer reflects on his past life (Vienna in ‘Figureskating, Neusiedlersee’) and present reality (‘Montardit’, ‘Segre’). By opening up his creative process to others Toph Taylor invites the listener to experience his most intimate and personal work to date. “On [debut album] Tremors it was like I was behind glass, but Trust feels like you could be sat in that room, and not just with me; you're sitting in this room with me, some musicians, some friends.”

                                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                    Start
                                                                                                    Antigravity
                                                                                                    Figureskating, Neusiedlersee
                                                                                                    M.I.A.
                                                                                                    I Won’t
                                                                                                    Riverbank
                                                                                                    Life Behind Glass
                                                                                                    Truce
                                                                                                    Montardit
                                                                                                    Serge
                                                                                                    Station
                                                                                                    Basis
                                                                                                    Caravel

                                                                                                    Dry Cleaning

                                                                                                    Stumpwork

                                                                                                      The South London-based group’s first studio album, recorded in just two weeks with producer John Parish at the iconic Rockfield Studios, became a huge critical and commercial success reaching #4 in the UK Album Charts and featuring in best-of-2021 polls across the board. Buoyed by its success, Nick Buxton (drums), Tom Dowse (guitar), Lewis Maynard (bass) and Florence Shaw (vocals) returned to rural Wales in late 2021, partnering once more with Parish and engineer Joe Jones. Working from a position of trust in the same studio and with the same team, imposter syndrome and anxiety was replaced by a fresh freedom and openness to explore beyond an already rangy sonic palette, a newfound confidence in their creative vision. A longer period in the studio afforded the time to experiment, improvise, play, sharpen their table tennis skills.

                                                                                                      Stumpwork was inspired by a plethora of events, concepts, and political debacles, be they represented in the icy mess of ambient elements reflecting a certain existential despair, or the surprising warmth in celebrating the lives of loved ones lost through the previous year. Surrealist lyrics are as ever at the forefront – but there is a sensitivity now to the themes of family, money, politics, self-deprecation, and sensuality. Furious alt-rock anthems combine across the record with jangle pop and ambient noise, demonstrating the wealth of influences the band feed off and their deep musicality. With the pressure of their debut album behind them, Dry Cleaning have crafted an ambitious and deeply rewarding new work that marks them out as one of the most intelligent and exciting acts to come out of the UK.

                                                                                                      The album and single artwork were conceived and created by multi-disciplinary artists Rottingdean Bazaar and photographer Annie Collinge. James Theseus Buck and Luke Brooks of Rottingdean Bazaar first worked with Dry Cleaning directing the official video for ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ and as their creative partnership with the band continues to flourish, they have fashioned a brilliantly unique visual identity for Stumpwork.

                                                                                                      STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                      Liam says: Loved last year's "New Long Leg"? Well you're gonna love this! Crammed full of that wry and witty humour that we adored on their debut, Dry Cleaning also step up sonically on "Stumpwork" with tonnes of infectious post-punk. Without a doubt a truly special band, who we hope stay with us for many years to come.

                                                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                      1. Anna Calls From The Arctic
                                                                                                      2. Kwenchy Kups
                                                                                                      3. Gary Ashby
                                                                                                      4. Driver’s Story
                                                                                                      5. Hot Penny Day
                                                                                                      6. Stumpwork
                                                                                                      7. No Decent Shoes For Rain
                                                                                                      8. Don’t Press Me
                                                                                                      9. Conservative Hell
                                                                                                      10. Liberty Log
                                                                                                      11. Icebergs

                                                                                                      Pixies

                                                                                                      Doolittle - Blu-ray Edition

                                                                                                        A first for both Pixies and 4AD, Doolittle is released as a Pure Audio Blu-ray.

                                                                                                        Containg both the album in high definition (96 kHz / 24 bit) 5.1 surround sound - having been remixed by audio specialist Kevin Vanbergen (FX) from the original analogue multi-tracks - and a HD transfer of the original stereo mix by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.

                                                                                                        The results are a revelation, separating out elements from the recordings that are buried in the stereo mix and adding space, depth and a clarity to the performances without diluting their energy and impact. An absolute must for all Pixies fans.

                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                        Debaser
                                                                                                        Tame
                                                                                                        Wave Of Mutilation
                                                                                                        I Bleed
                                                                                                        Here Comes Your Man
                                                                                                        Dead
                                                                                                        Monkey Gone To Heaven
                                                                                                        Mr. Grieves
                                                                                                        Crackity Jones
                                                                                                        La La Love You
                                                                                                        No. 13 Baby
                                                                                                        There Goes My Gun
                                                                                                        Hey
                                                                                                        Silver
                                                                                                        Gouge Away

                                                                                                        The National

                                                                                                        The National - National Album Day 2022 Edition

                                                                                                          The National’s self-titled debut album marks the start point for one of the best bands of a generation.

                                                                                                          Released in 2001, ‘The National’ landed two years after they formed and came during a time when they were having to juggle band life with full-time jobs.

                                                                                                          And while nods to the alt. rock artists that inspired them (Pavement, Silver Jews) can be heard, so too are the beginnings of something all their own - Matt Berninger’s stunning and unexpected lyrics being pinned to melodies that stop you in your tracks.

                                                                                                          For National Album Day 2022, the band reissue the album on white vinyl.

                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                          Beautiful Head
                                                                                                          Cold Girl Fever
                                                                                                          The Perfect Song
                                                                                                          American Mary
                                                                                                          Son
                                                                                                          Pay For Me
                                                                                                          Bitters & Absolut
                                                                                                          John’s Star
                                                                                                          Watching You Well
                                                                                                          Theory Of The Crows
                                                                                                          29 Years
                                                                                                          Anna Freud

                                                                                                          Bartees Strange

                                                                                                          Farm To Table

                                                                                                            Born in Ipswich, England to a military father and opera-singer mother Bartees had a peripatetic early childhood before eventually settling in Mustang, Oklahoma. Later, Bartees cut his teeth playing in hardcore bands in Washington D.C. and Brooklyn whilst working in the Barack Obama administration and (eventually) the environmental movement. Since charting a path as a solo artist, Bartees Strange has released two records in quick succession: an EP reimagining songs by The National (Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy, 2020) and his debut album proper Live Forever (2020).

                                                                                                            Farm to Table, which also includes recent single ‘Heavy Heart’, is the second album from Washington D.C. resident Bartees Leon Cox Jr.. Where his 2020 debut record Live Forever introduced the experiences and places that shaped Bartees (Flagey Brussels, Mustang Oklahoma), Farm to Table zeros in on the people – specifically his family – and those closest to him on his journey so far. With his career firmly on the ascent, Farm to Table examines Bartees’ constantly shapeshifting relationship with life post-Live Forever. It also speaks to a deeper lore that says, don’t forget where you came from, and this album is why. Always remembering where he came from, across 10 songs Bartees is celebrating the past, moving towards the future, and fully appreciating the present.

                                                                                                            An unapologetic and braggadocious indie-trap banger, new single ‘Cosigns’ celebrates Bartees’ peers, collaborators and friends; name-checking the likes of Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett, Lucy Dacus, through a genre-defying outpouring somewhere between swaggering hip hop and euphoric alt rock. The song ends on a poem he wrote in his early 20s, “I don’t know how to be full, it’s the hardest to know, I keep consuming I can’t give it up, It’s never enough.” ‘Cosigns’ is also a moment for Bartees to acknowledge himself, giving himself credence and unashamedly basking in that glow. Its accompanying official video was directed by Pooneh Ghana.

                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                            A1. Heavy Heart
                                                                                                            A2. Mulholland Dr.
                                                                                                            A3. Wretched
                                                                                                            A4. Cosigns
                                                                                                            A5. Tours
                                                                                                            B1. Hold The Line
                                                                                                            B2. We Were Only Close For Like Two Weeks
                                                                                                            B3. Escape This Circus
                                                                                                            B4. Daily News (Vinyl Only Track)
                                                                                                            B5. Black Gold
                                                                                                            B6. Hennessy

                                                                                                            Spencer

                                                                                                            Are U Down?

                                                                                                              Written, recorded and produced by Spencer. during the pandemic, ‘Are U Down?’ blends R&B, hip-hop, funk, indie, pop, jazz and soul to create a sound that feels both analogue and digital, honouring the past whilst staying firmly in the present.

                                                                                                              Spencer. has integrated neo-soul vocal fireworks, hip-hop flow and pop ambition into an album steeped in all the feels of a New York summer.

                                                                                                              The album includes the singles ‘No Direction’ which Spencer. performed for the GRAMMY’s Play At Home series, ‘MyLuv’ and ‘Lonely As I Ever Was’, as well as the standout track ‘U Around?’, which was prominently featured on episode five of the latest season of the HBO hit-show ‘Insecure’.

                                                                                                              The record also features 4AD labelmate Becky And The Birds (vocals on ‘After The Show’), Luke Diamond (guitars) and Jake Aron (some additional production).

                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                              Byyyte
                                                                                                              Lonely As I Ever Was
                                                                                                              U Around?
                                                                                                              MyLuv
                                                                                                              After The Show (Spencer feat Becky And The Birds)
                                                                                                              Luvs Me Not
                                                                                                              RocStar
                                                                                                              Staywmecassette
                                                                                                              No Direction
                                                                                                              Heart Freestyle
                                                                                                              Drop

                                                                                                              Bon Iver

                                                                                                              Bon Iver, Bon Iver (10th Anniversary Edition)

                                                                                                              June 2021 marked the tenth anniversary of the worldwide release of Bon Iver's highly acclaimed sophomore release Bon Iver, Bon Iver.

                                                                                                              This edition also includes five songs from Bon Iver’s beautiful AIR Studios session, which captures the grand spirit of Bon Iver, Bon Iver and distils it into sharper focus, as Justin Vernon and Sean Carey perform the songs as a duo, on grand pianos and vocals only. Bon Iver, Bon Iver (10th Anniversary Edition) features a blind embossed version of the original cover art and an intimate personal essay from long-time fan Phoebe Bridgers recalling how the “massive, sprawling, unbelievably complex” album brings about both yearning for yesterday, contentment for the present, and collective hope for the future. The album’s iconic cover art has been reimagined to a minimal white-on-white, with a white LP to match.

                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                              Perth
                                                                                                              Minnesota, W
                                                                                                              Holocene
                                                                                                              Towers
                                                                                                              Michicant
                                                                                                              Hinnom, TX
                                                                                                              Wash.
                                                                                                              Calgary
                                                                                                              Lisbon, OH
                                                                                                              Beth/Rest
                                                                                                              Hinnom, TX (AIR Studios - 4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)
                                                                                                              Wash. (AIR Studios - 4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)
                                                                                                              I Can't Make You Love Me (AIR Studios - 4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)
                                                                                                              Babys (AIR Studios - 4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)
                                                                                                              Beth/Rest (AIR Studios - 4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)

                                                                                                              Aldous Harding announces details of a new studio album, the follow-up to 2019’s acclaimed Designer.

                                                                                                              For Warm Chris, the New Zealand musician reunited with producer John Parish, continuing a professional partnership that began in 2017 and has forged pivotal bodies of work (2017’s Party and the aforementioned Designer). All ten tracks were recorded at Rockfield Studios and includes contributions from H. Hawkline, Seb Rochford, Gavin Fitzjohn, John and Hopey Parish and Jason Williamson (Sleaford Mods).

                                                                                                              STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                              Barry says: Warm Chris takes the songwriting foundation laid down on 'Designer' and warps it with a more noticeable veer towards arty alt-folk minimalism. there are bits of the clanging indie of Barnett or tender spoken-folk segments of Neil Young but presented in a voice that's enduringly, all her own. Beautiful as expected.

                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                              Ennui
                                                                                                              Tick Tock
                                                                                                              Fever
                                                                                                              Warm Chris
                                                                                                              Lawn
                                                                                                              Passion Babe
                                                                                                              She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain
                                                                                                              Staring At The Henry Moore
                                                                                                              Bubbles
                                                                                                              Leathery Whip

                                                                                                              Jenny Hval

                                                                                                              Classic Objects

                                                                                                                Classic Objects is a map of places; past places, like the old empty Melbourne pubs Hval’s band used to play in, public places Hval missed throughout lockdown, imagined, future places, and impossible places where dreams, hallucinations, death and art can take you. It is interested in combining heavenly things and plain things.

                                                                                                                Classic Objects is Hval’s version of a pop album. Every song has a verse and a chorus. There are interchangeable moments of complexity, interesting melodies throughout, and a feeling of elevation and clarity in the choruses. Heba Kadry mixed it to sound as though it’s played through “a stereo in a mysterious room.”

                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                Year Of Love
                                                                                                                American Coffee
                                                                                                                Classic Objects
                                                                                                                Cemetery Of Splendour
                                                                                                                Year Of Sky
                                                                                                                Jupiter
                                                                                                                Freedom
                                                                                                                The Revolution Will Not Be Owned

                                                                                                                Big Thief

                                                                                                                Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

                                                                                                                  Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is a sprawling double-LP exploring the deepest elements and possibilities of Big Thief. To truly dig into all that the music of Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia desired in 2020, the band decided to write and record a rambling account of growth as individuals, musicians, and chosen family over 4 distinct recording sessions. In Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, The Rocky Mountains, and Tucson, Arizona, Big Thief spent 5 months in creation and came out with 45 completed songs. The most resonant of this material was edited down into the 20 tracks that make up DNWMIBIY, a fluid and adventurous listen. The album was produced by drummer James Krivchenia who initially pitched the recording concept for DNWMIBIY back in late 2019 with the goal of encapsulating the many different aspects of Adrianne’s songwriting and the band onto a single record.

                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                  Change
                                                                                                                  Time Escaping
                                                                                                                  Spud Infinity
                                                                                                                  Certainty
                                                                                                                  Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
                                                                                                                  Sparrow
                                                                                                                  Little Things
                                                                                                                  Heavy Bend
                                                                                                                  Flower Of Blood
                                                                                                                  Blurred View
                                                                                                                  Red Moon
                                                                                                                  Dried Roses
                                                                                                                  No Reason
                                                                                                                  Wake Me Up To Drive
                                                                                                                  Promise Is A Pendulum
                                                                                                                  12,000 Lines
                                                                                                                  Simulation Swarm
                                                                                                                  Love Love Love
                                                                                                                  The Only Place
                                                                                                                  Blue Lightning

                                                                                                                  Tkay Maidza

                                                                                                                  Last Year Was Weird Vol. 3

                                                                                                                  ARIA and BET nominated rapper and artist Tkay Maidza announces the highly anticipated follow-up to 2020’s ‘Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2’ (The Needle Drop’s #1 EP of the Year). ‘Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 3’ is the final act of Tkay’s EP trilogy, featuring eight new songs produced by long-time collaborator Dan Farber.

                                                                                                                  Tkay Maidza recently wrapped a stratospheric 2020 that propelled the Zimbabwe-born, Australia raised artist to new heights. From billboards in Times Square, to features in Pitchfork and Vogue and a placement on the FIFA Soundtrack, her ‘Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2’ EP presented a compelling new stride for the young artist whose craft spans genres. The ARIA-nominated EP for Best Soul/R&B Release received plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, Stereogum, Crack, The Guardian and PAPER.

                                                                                                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                  Matt says: Weird-ass alt-RnB that's so meta you'll believe you've handed in all your chips for bitcoins.

                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                  Eden
                                                                                                                  Onto Me (with UMI)
                                                                                                                  So Cold
                                                                                                                  Syrup
                                                                                                                  Kim (with Yung Baby Tate)
                                                                                                                  High Beams
                                                                                                                  Cashmere
                                                                                                                  Breathe

                                                                                                                  When Roberto Carlos Lange, the musician known as Helado Negro, began writing ‘Far In’ immediately following the release of his acclaimed 2019 ‘This is How You Smile’, he could not have predicted that we would soon need to learn how to stay at home and be the stars of our domestic dancefloors with intimate and online communities.

                                                                                                                  The titular pair in ‘Gemini and Leo’ stay indoors to discover each other anew with music recalling Lange’s youth growing up in South Florida listening to 80s club songs, and their return sampled in 90s hip-hop.

                                                                                                                  Visions past and future meet in a euphoria of uptempo drums, Jen Wasner’s (Flock of Dimes) funky bassline, and Opal Hoyt’s (Zenizen) galactic swirl of warm and steely synths and bright backing vocals.

                                                                                                                  What was a prophesying rehearsal for the musician will, we can hope, soon be our fresh start, a choice to bring that energy home, or go out to meet it.

                                                                                                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                  Patrick says: This is lush! I immediately tipped Ryan Horsebeach to it upon listening, as it finds a fine middle ground between Mac Demarco's lazy jangle and the Whitest Boy Alive. #AccidentalBalearic

                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                  Wake Up Tomorrow
                                                                                                                  Gemini And Leo
                                                                                                                  Purple Tones
                                                                                                                  There Must Be A Song
                                                                                                                  Like You
                                                                                                                  Aguas Frías
                                                                                                                  Aureole
                                                                                                                  Hometown Dream
                                                                                                                  Agosto (Feat.Buscabulla)
                                                                                                                  Outside The Outside
                                                                                                                  Brown Fluorescence
                                                                                                                  Wind Conversations
                                                                                                                  Thank You For Ever
                                                                                                                  La Naranja
                                                                                                                  Telescope (Feat. Benamin)
                                                                                                                  Mirror Talk

                                                                                                                  Lucinda Chua

                                                                                                                  Antidotes

                                                                                                                    Lucinda Chua is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist based in South London. Primarily using her voice, a cello, and an array of effects units, Chua writes ambient pop songs that are intimate, atmospheric, and totally enchanting.

                                                                                                                    Whilst studying photography at university in Nottingham, Chua took an elective course in music production and the resulting experimental tracks she created and uploaded online caught the attention of US label kranky. Before long she was touring with Stars of the Lid as a cellist and string arranger and went on to release two albums with her first band Felix – all while barely into her 20s. After Felix broke up, Chua spent a few years in London exploring the city’s creative scene and began experimenting with the cello. Those explorations became her 2019 debut EP Antidotes 1 which flitted between hushed songwriting and expansive textural soundscapes and was released shortly before she joined FKA twigs’ live band for her Magdalene tour. Earning praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, Dazed and gal-dem, Antidotes 1 led to Chua participating in NTS Radio’s Work In Progress scheme as well as performing one-person shows across the UK and Europe including Red Bull Music Festival London, MUTEK Barcelona, Tate Modern and Somerset House.

                                                                                                                    A sister release to Antidotes 1, Antidotes 2 expands Chua’s unique sonic vocabulary, with subliminal textures that bleed into each other before fading away. If Antidotes 1 was Chua building the landscape and scenery for her music, then Antidotes 2 is her living within it. Some of the songs were written during the same period whilst others, like EP opener ‘Until I Fall’, are brand new.

                                                                                                                    The vinyl edition of Antidotes will include both EPs.

                                                                                                                    STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                    Barry says: Having played with ambient luminaries Stars Of The Lid as a cellist, it's no surprise that Chua's work is very much in the slow-moving ambient vein, but on 'Antidotes' we see her wonderful ear for production and singularly unique ambient talent come shining through. It's beguiling and emotive avant-classical with subtle elements of slow-moving synth, and is a sound all of her own.

                                                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                    Feel Something
                                                                                                                    Whatever It Takes
                                                                                                                    Semitones
                                                                                                                    Somebody Who
                                                                                                                    Until I Fall
                                                                                                                    An Avalanche
                                                                                                                    Torch Song
                                                                                                                    Before

                                                                                                                    Various Artists

                                                                                                                    Bills & Aches & Blues (40 Years Of 4AD)

                                                                                                                      In 2020, 4AD turned 40. Never one to be on time for a party, the label is commemorating that landmark this year with the release of Bills & Aches & Blues.

                                                                                                                      The compilation features 18 of its current artists covering a song of their choosing from 4AD’s past: a creative experiment rooted in the spirit of collaboration and a snapshot of 4AD, 41 years after its inception.

                                                                                                                      Bills & Aches & Blues will be released on double LP and double CD on 23rd July. The first 12 months’ profits from Bills & Aches & Blues will be donated to The Harmony Project, a Los Angeles-based after-school programme for children from communities and schools that lack equitable access to studying the arts or music.

                                                                                                                      Bills & Aches & Blues’ 18 recordings contain fascinating connections between artist and track. The earliest song chosen (by U.S. Girls) is The Birthday Party’s ‘Junkyard’, from 1981; the most recent are the two Grimes covers (‘Genesis’ and ‘Oblivion’, respectively by Spencer. and Dry Cleaning) from 2012. Suitably, for the one band that bridges 4AD past and present, The Breeders are all over Bills And Aches And Blues. They’re covered three times – ‘Cannonball’ by Tune-Yards, ‘Mountain Battles’ by Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and ‘Off You’ by Big Thief, whilst The Breeders cover ‘The Dirt Eaters’ by their ‘90s contemporaries His Name Is Alive.

                                                                                                                      Landmark songs such as ‘Cannonball’, ‘Song To The Siren’ and Pixies’ ‘Where is My Mind?’, will feel comfortable to casual fans, however by contrast, much joy can be found in the album’s surprise choices, such as Air Miami’s ‘Seabird’ and the Lush B-side ‘Sunbathing’, covered respectively by new signings Maria Somerville and Jenny Hval.

                                                                                                                      Bills & Aches & Blues is named, arguably (as Elizabeth Fraser never published the lyrics) after the opening line of Cocteau Twins ‘Cherry-Coloured Funk’. Perhaps too unique and uncoverable in their own right, their legendary take on Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’, under the name This Mortal Coil (along with Buckley’s pre-Starsailor acoustic version) informs SOHN’s cover.

                                                                                                                      Some tracks unearth hitherto hidden shared DNA, such as Future Islands’ and Colourbox’s ‘The Moon Is Blue’; other tracks are more akin to reinvention. Aldous Harding distils the melodic essence of Deerhunter’s ‘Revival’ and recasts it in her own uncanny image. U.S. Girls’ future-disco ‘Junkyard’ and Bing & Ruth’s neo-classical instrumental ‘Gigantic’ are even more radical interpretations. Leading off the album, Tkay Maidza brings both her Art Rap and R&B game, but also an unexpected ‘80s synth pop template, to Pixies’ ‘Where Is My Mind?’, a perfect title for these chaotic times.

                                                                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                      Side 1:
                                                                                                                      01 Tkay Maidza - Where Is My Mind? (Pixies)
                                                                                                                      02 U.S. Girls - Junkyard (The Birthday Party)
                                                                                                                      03 Aldous Harding - Revival (Deerhunter)
                                                                                                                      04 The Breeders - Dirt Eaters (His Name Is Alive)
                                                                                                                      05 Maria Somerville - Seabird (Air Miami)

                                                                                                                      Side 2:
                                                                                                                      06 Tune-Yards - Cannonball (The Breeders)
                                                                                                                      07 Spencer - Genesis (Grimes)
                                                                                                                      08 Helado Negro - Futurism (Deerhunter)
                                                                                                                      09 Efterklang - Postal (Piano Magic)
                                                                                                                      10 Bing And Ruth - Gigantic (Pixies)

                                                                                                                      Side 3:
                                                                                                                      11 Future Islands - The Moon Is Blue (Colourbox)
                                                                                                                      12 Jenny Hval - Sunbathing (Lush)
                                                                                                                      13 Dry Cleaning - Oblivion (Grimes)
                                                                                                                      14 Bradford Cox - Mountain Battles (Breeders)

                                                                                                                      Side 4:
                                                                                                                      15 SOHN - Song To The Siren (Tim Buckley)
                                                                                                                      16 Becky And The Birds - The Wolves Act I And II (Bon Iver)
                                                                                                                      17 Ex:Re - Misery Is A Butterfly (Blonde Redhead)
                                                                                                                      18 Big Thief - Off You (The Breeders)

                                                                                                                      Erika De Casier

                                                                                                                      Sensational

                                                                                                                        Copenhagen-based songwriter and producer Erika de Casier has announced details of her second full-length studio album. Sensational, which includes recent singles ‘No Butterflies, No Nothing’ and ‘Drama’

                                                                                                                        Sensational expands the universe of de Casier’s 2019 self-released debut album Essentials. Where Essentials dealt more with the infatuation stages of love, Sensational has more of an attitude, aiming to dismantle the stereotype of single women looking for love, tackling relationship dramas and the toxicity of dating. It was a chance to rewrite scenarios in ways that empowered her, fantasising about what could’ve been. Sensational was co-produced by de Casier and is a breath of fresh air to anyone with a passion for music in all its genres, as much influenced by Aaliyah and Janet Jackson as house, garage and techno. With hushed, pillow-soft vocals and production that references turn-of-the-millenium sounds, de Casier’s sound surveys the past while looking to the future.

                                                                                                                        Born in Portugal to Belgian and Cape Verdean parents and raised in Denmark, Erika de Casier initially made her mark as an ally of the Regelbau collective (home to Danish house acts DJ Sports, C.K and Central) before writing, co-producing and releasing debut album, Essentials, through her own Independent Jeep label. Her take on 90s/00s R&B became a slow-burn success story and Essentials graced Best of 2019 lists at Mixmag, Gorilla vs. Bear, FACT, Dummy, and Crack Magazine.

                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                        1. Drama
                                                                                                                        2. Polite
                                                                                                                        3. Make My Day
                                                                                                                        4. All You Talk About
                                                                                                                        5. Insult Me
                                                                                                                        6. No Butterflies, No Nothing
                                                                                                                        7. Someone To Chill With
                                                                                                                        8. Acceptance (intermezzo)
                                                                                                                        9. Better Than That
                                                                                                                        10. Friendly
                                                                                                                        11. Secretly
                                                                                                                        12. Busy
                                                                                                                        13. Call Me Anytime

                                                                                                                        Belly

                                                                                                                        Bees

                                                                                                                          Belly celebrate 30 years since forming with Bees, a comprehensive compilation of b-sides, covers and oddities thatís sure to delight fans.

                                                                                                                          Collecting their non-album tracks together for the very first time, Bees was lovingly compiled by the band with their chosen 19 tracks spanning their whole career.




                                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                          Dancing Gold
                                                                                                                          Star
                                                                                                                          Dream On Me
                                                                                                                          Sweet Ride
                                                                                                                          Trust In Me
                                                                                                                          Diamond Rib Cage
                                                                                                                          Sexy S
                                                                                                                          Baby's Arm
                                                                                                                          Broken
                                                                                                                          It’s Not Unusual
                                                                                                                          Are You Experienced?
                                                                                                                          Spaceman
                                                                                                                          Hot Burrito #1
                                                                                                                          Think About Your Troubles
                                                                                                                          Hushabye Mountain
                                                                                                                          Lilith
                                                                                                                          John Dark
                                                                                                                          Judas Mon Coeur
                                                                                                                          Thief

                                                                                                                          Tune-Yards

                                                                                                                          W H O K I L L (RSD21 EDITION)

                                                                                                                            THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

                                                                                                                            IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).


                                                                                                                            Tune-Yards 2011 breakthrough second album whokill will receive a limited edition pressing on splatter vinyl to celebrate its 10th anniversary on Record Store Day Upon its original release the album received accolades from The Guardian, Pitchfork, NPR, The New York Times, and it won the Village Voice's prestigious Paz & Jop critic's prize. The brainchild of Merrill Garbus, tUnE-yArDs began life as dictaphone recordings which were then painstakingly mixed down on GarageBand to create her opening gambit, the debut album BiRd-BrAiNs. Initially released on a limited LP run with screen printed sleeves recycled from thrift store bargain bins, the album was formally released in late 2009. Alongside the record, she also started to build quite a reputation for her live performances. Using loop pedals, two mics, a snare drum, a ukelele, her distinctive voice (she's spent time teaching singing in Kenya) and crucially, a second band member, Nate Brenner on bass. The album, w h o k i l l, marks a time when everything came together in to one cohesive whole. Recorded in a studio and influenced heavily by her moving to Oakland, California, she and Nate made an album that delivered on her early promise. Lyrically Garbus explores constructs of femininity and sexuality with the threat of violence that lurks on the streets where she now lives, while the energy of their show has been translated perfectly to record. 

                                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                            Side A 1. My Country 2. Es-so 3. Gangsta 4. Powa 5. Riotriot
                                                                                                                            Side B 1. Bizness 2. Doorstep 3. You Yes You 5. Wooly Wolly Gong 5. Killa

                                                                                                                            Tkay Maidza

                                                                                                                            Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2

                                                                                                                              Tkay Maidza is a tour de force on her new EP Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2. Her sonic versatility takes centre stage on eight tracks that include spitfire summer anthem and lead single ‘Shook’, smooth boy-bye manifesto ‘Don’t Call Again (feat. Kari Faux)’ and trap-infused ‘Awake (feat. JPEGMAFIA)’, which was nominated for a 2019 ARIA award and earned a best of the decade nod from The Needle Drop, as well as praise from Pitchfork, The FADER, Dazed, Complex, and others. The EP follows 2018’s Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 1, which established her as an exciting voice in the new guard of hip-hop.

                                                                                                                              STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                              Millie says: This is GOLD. Tkay Maidza brings the good stuff, firey R&B and faultless vocal. She's about to stride into the fame she deserves, watch this space.

                                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                              1. My Flowers
                                                                                                                              2. 24k
                                                                                                                              3. Shook
                                                                                                                              4. Awake (ft. JPEGMAFIA)
                                                                                                                              5. Grasshopper
                                                                                                                              6. You Sad
                                                                                                                              7. PB Jam
                                                                                                                              8. Don’t Call Again (ft. Kari Faux)

                                                                                                                              Tune-Yards

                                                                                                                              Sketchy.

                                                                                                                                Tune-Yards announces details of their fifth studio album, sketchy. The 11-track record, which includes last year’s single ‘nowhere, man’, will be released on 26 March 2021, on 4AD.

                                                                                                                                Tune-Yards’ last release I can feel you creep into my private life, was a self-reflexive question mark at the end of a decade of outspoken, polyphonic indie music. From 2009 to 2018, Tune-Yards (both Merrill and her partner and collaborator Nate Brenner) released four critically acclaimed albums, travelled the world relentlessly to play live shows, and composed the psychedelic score to Boots Riley's surrealist cinematic masterpiece Sorry To Bother You. "We had really been non-stop hustling," Merrill reflects. "And when we're hustling, we're complicit in all of the systems that I really don't believe in."

                                                                                                                                Interrogating these systems and her role within them had left Merrill feeling heavy with grief and lost about how to move forward. The duo pressed on, inspired by the Beastie Boys Book and Questlove’s Creative Quest, and began jamming daily for hours in their home rehearsal studio “like athletes”. They ditched computer screens for live instruments (Merrill on drums, Nate on bass) and before long full songs started to emerge.

                                                                                                                                Unlike the lyrical introspection of previous outing I can feel you..., on sketchy. Merrill balances self-inspection and reflection with bombastic rallying cries, reminiscent of the furious tones of early days Tune-Yards. The result is a colourful and joyous record with lyrics that cut to the bone. "I started remembering that people come to us to be entertained, to move, to feel joy. And together, I think, we can wake up.”

                                                                                                                                STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                Barry says: 'Sketchy' brings the Tune Yards sound forward with a heavy af distillation of the restrained groove of their recent output, and the youthful exuberance of their early years, resulting in a wildly satisfying and rousing musical war cry. A brilliantly written and hugely varied gem.

                                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                Nowhere, Man
                                                                                                                                Make It Right.
                                                                                                                                Hypnotized
                                                                                                                                Homewrecker
                                                                                                                                Silence Pt. 1 (when We Say “we”)
                                                                                                                                Silence Pt. 2 (who Is “we”?)
                                                                                                                                Hold Yourself.
                                                                                                                                Sometime
                                                                                                                                Under Your Lip
                                                                                                                                My Neighbor
                                                                                                                                Be Not Afraid.

                                                                                                                                Musically, Dry Cleaning have been compared to the likes of The Fall and Sonic Youth as well as their contemporaries Squid, Shame and Yard Act, who are only some of the bands that have been riding the waves of the recent post punk resurgence. The London band combines repetitive bass lines with moody yet catchy guitar riffs and lecturer and visual artist Florence Shaw’s dry, monotone Sprechgesang.

                                                                                                                                Seemingly samey at first listen, it’s a record that keeps revealing more with each play. No matter how often you think you have shelved it, it will always make itself known again. Dry Cleaning’s lyrics are a combination of Shaw’s own writing and snippets of other people’s reflections she has come across - be it via real life conversations or on the internet, e.g. in the Youtube comment wormhole. Like a stream of consciousness they make for an interesting read / listen, with highlights aplenty. “I think of myself as a hardy banana with that waxy surface and the small delicate flowers / A woman in aviators firing a bazooka” reads one line. Complete absurdity or the mundanity of everyday life? Tongue in cheek or absolutely serious?

                                                                                                                                Whichever you think it is, you can’t help but be charmed by her deadpan attitude. One thing I can’t get on board with, however, are her outrageous nutritional opinions. “That seems like a lot of garlic” she muses in ‘Strong Feelings’. There’s never enough garlic.

                                                                                                                                STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                Barry says: Dry cleaning's wry humour and impeccable grasp of rhythm and mood permeates the entirety of their newest outing, 'New Long Leg'. Driven bassy groove and melodic guitar licks perfectly accentuate the sultry spoken word vocals, resulting in an impactful and dynamic whole.

                                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                1. Scratchcard Lanyard
                                                                                                                                2. Unsmart Lady
                                                                                                                                3. Strong Feelings
                                                                                                                                4. Leafy
                                                                                                                                5. Her Hippo
                                                                                                                                6. New Long Leg
                                                                                                                                7. John Wick
                                                                                                                                8. More Big Birds
                                                                                                                                9. A.L.C
                                                                                                                                10. Every Day Carry

                                                                                                                                The National

                                                                                                                                Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers - 2021 Reissue

                                                                                                                                  The National’s second album, Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers (2003) proved a leap forward from 2001’s eponymous debut, showing a band adept at delivering warm embraces and gut punches in equal measure.

                                                                                                                                  With word of mouth now spreading on the band, critics proved equally enthusiastic... Pitchfork in their glowing review called it a “Gorgeous train wreck” that “Lives up to its blunt title (with) Matt Berninger’s self-effacing barbs matched by the band’s equally potent hooks,” while Uncut also became early champions saying the album was “A genuine treasure... Livid as a bruise, this is brave, desperate, beautiful music.”

                                                                                                                                  No longer a secret among those that know, Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers is an important record in The National’s discography with this new remaster showing that it’s more than standing the test of time.

                                                                                                                                  Having been remastered at Abbey Road Studios, the 2021 represses stay faithful to their original artwork while their stunning new masters help make these much-loved records sound as vital as ever, further emphasising the early signs of the sound that would go on to make them one of the fi nest and most beloved alternative bands of their generation.

                                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                  1. / A1. Cardinal Song
                                                                                                                                  2. / A2. Slipping Husband
                                                                                                                                  3. / A3. 90-Mile Water Wall
                                                                                                                                  4. / A4. It Never Happened
                                                                                                                                  5. / A5. Murder Me Rachael
                                                                                                                                  6. / B1. Thirsty
                                                                                                                                  7. / B2. Available
                                                                                                                                  8. / B3. Sugar Wife
                                                                                                                                  9. / B4. Trophy Wife
                                                                                                                                  10. / B5. Fashion Coat
                                                                                                                                  11. / B6. Patterns Of Fairytales
                                                                                                                                  12. / B7. Lucky You

                                                                                                                                  The National

                                                                                                                                  The National - 2021 Reissue

                                                                                                                                    Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2021, The National’s self-titled debut album of sozzled Americana is a thing of beauty, laden with heavy hints that this was a special band in the making.

                                                                                                                                    Their first release, The National arrived two years after The National formed, a time when they were juggling bandlife with needing to hold down full-time jobs. And while nods to the alt. rock artists that inspired them (Pavement, Silver Jews) can be heard, so too are the beginnings of something all their own – Matt Berninger’s stunning and unexpected lyrics being pinned to melodies that stop you in your tracks.

                                                                                                                                    The National marks the start point for one of the best bands of their generation with its new master helping elevate it to new levels. A great primer to a great band.

                                                                                                                                    Having been remastered at Abbey Road Studios, the 2021 represses stay faithful to their original artwork while their stunning new masters help make these much-loved records sound as vital as ever, further emphasising the early signs of the sound that would go on to make them one of the fi nest and most beloved alternative bands of their generation.

                                                                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                    1. / A1. Beautiful Head
                                                                                                                                    2. / A2. Cold Girl Fever
                                                                                                                                    3. / A3. The Perfect Song
                                                                                                                                    4. / A4. American Mary
                                                                                                                                    5. / A5. Son
                                                                                                                                    6. / A6. Pay For Me
                                                                                                                                    7. / B1. Bitters & Absolut
                                                                                                                                    8. / B2. John’s Star
                                                                                                                                    9. / B3. Watching You Well
                                                                                                                                    10. / B4. Theory Of The Crows
                                                                                                                                    11. / B5. 29 Years
                                                                                                                                    12. / B6. Anna Freud

                                                                                                                                    The National

                                                                                                                                    Cherry Tree EP - 2021 Reissue

                                                                                                                                      Released a year before The National broke through with their third album Alligator, 2004’s Cherry Tree EP is a thrilling record which - thanks to its collection of delicate ballads and anthemic crowd-pleasers - sums up what they do best in under 30 minutes. Now a firm fan-favourite, among Cherry Tree’s seven tracks are now National classics ‘About Today’ and ‘All The Wine’, plus a thrilling live version of ‘Murder Me Rachael’ that reminds of the band’s fearsome early live performances. Cherry Tree can be seen as the record that marks the moment when The National had truly found themselves, a bridge from what went before to a band ready to conquer the World.

                                                                                                                                      Having been remastered at Abbey Road Studios, the 2021 represses stay faithful to their original artwork while their stunning new masters help make these much-loved records sound as vital as ever, further emphasising the early signs of the sound that would go on to make them one of the fi nest and most beloved alternative bands of their generation.

                                                                                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                      1. / A1. Wasp Nest
                                                                                                                                      2. / A2. All The Wine
                                                                                                                                      3. / A3. All Dolled-Up In Straps
                                                                                                                                      4. / A4. Cherry Tree
                                                                                                                                      5. / B1. About Today
                                                                                                                                      6. / B2. Murder Me Rachael (Live)
                                                                                                                                      7. / B3. Reasonable Man (I Don’t Mind)

                                                                                                                                      Adrianne Lenker

                                                                                                                                      Songs And Instrumentals

                                                                                                                                        'Songs And Instrumentals' are two distinct collections, both written and recorded in April after Big Thief’s March tour was abruptly cut short due to coronavirus. After returning to the states from Europe, Lenker decamped to a one room cabin in the mountains of western Massachusetts.

                                                                                                                                        The album’s stunning artwork are watercolor paintings done by Adrianne’s grandmother, Diane Lee.

                                                                                                                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                        Barry says: There really is no stopping Lenker is there? (and why indeed would you want to?) 'Songs And Instrumentals' carries on the runaway success of Lenkers band, Big Thief but moves into the more subtle recesses of her songwriting prowess. Brittle in parts, but shining throughout, this is an accomplished and immersive outing.

                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                        Songs
                                                                                                                                        1. Two Reverse
                                                                                                                                        2. Ingydar
                                                                                                                                        3. Anything
                                                                                                                                        4. Forwards Beckon Rebound
                                                                                                                                        5. Heavy Focus
                                                                                                                                        6. Half Return
                                                                                                                                        7. Come
                                                                                                                                        8. Zombie Girl
                                                                                                                                        9. Not A Lot, Just Forever
                                                                                                                                        10. Dragon Eyes
                                                                                                                                        11. My Angel

                                                                                                                                        Instrumentals
                                                                                                                                        1. Music For Indigo
                                                                                                                                        2. Mostly Chimes

                                                                                                                                        Future Islands

                                                                                                                                        The Far Field

                                                                                                                                        Future Islands are Samuel T. Herring (vocals, lyrics), William Cashion (bass, guitars) and Gerrit Whelmers (keyboards, programming).

                                                                                                                                        Recorded in Los Angeles with GRAMMY award-winning producer John Congleton at the legendary Sunset Sound (where everyone from The Beach Boys to Prince have laid down masterpieces), The Far Field’s twelve chest-pounding love songs and odes to the road brilliantly express the central themes the band have been exploring for the last decade: that there is power in emotional vulnerability, that one can find a way to laugh and cry in the same breath – and be stronger for it.

                                                                                                                                        The Far Field features string and horn arrangements by Patrick McMinn and is their first record to feature live drums by Michael Lowry, who joined the band prior to their sensational performance of ‘Seasons (Waiting On You)’ on David Letterman’s late night TV show and has remained a fixture since. Blondie’s Debbie Harry also makes a guest appearance, in a duet with Herring on penultimate track ‘Shadows’.

                                                                                                                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                        Barry says: Whilst I know the lead singer of Future Islands has enchanted people with his 'Grandad after 7 sherries' stage-swagger, it is the music here that is truly the star (thank goodness). Slightly gothic atmospheres, soaring synths and plenty of late-80's plate reverbs. Dark but driven indie for the eye-makeup crowd.

                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                        1. Aladdin
                                                                                                                                        2. Time On Her Side
                                                                                                                                        3. Ran
                                                                                                                                        4. Beauty Of The Road
                                                                                                                                        5. Cave
                                                                                                                                        6. Through The Roses
                                                                                                                                        7. North Star
                                                                                                                                        8. Ancient Water
                                                                                                                                        9. Candles
                                                                                                                                        10. Day Glow Fire
                                                                                                                                        11. Shadows
                                                                                                                                        12. Black Rose

                                                                                                                                        The Lemon Twigs emerged in 2016 with their debut LP, Do Hollywood, which was praised by Rolling Stone for its “toting hooky songs that stand out for their intricate arrangements and delectable melodies” and NPR Music who mused, “like listening to music from a time that never was…a baroque rock romp.”

                                                                                                                                        Their second album, Go To School is their most ambitious work yet; a conceptual musical, conceived by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, which tells a heartbreaking coming of age story of Shane, a pure of heart chimpanzee raised as a human boy as he comes to terms with the obstacles of life. Todd Rundgren and their real-life mother Susan Hall play Shane’s parents. The album also features contributions from Jody Stephens (Big Star), Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) and their father Ronnie D’Addario.

                                                                                                                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                        Barry says: Immediately reminiscent of all your favourite rock greats (you name it, the Lemon Twigs know it), but with a brilliantly innovative sense of pacing and style. Brilliantly mature and eccentrically conceptual, this is a killer LP from a band rising through the ranks quickly. Ace.

                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                        Never In My Arms, Always In My Heart
                                                                                                                                        The Student Becomes The Teacher
                                                                                                                                        Rock Dreams
                                                                                                                                        The Lesson
                                                                                                                                        Small Victories
                                                                                                                                        Wonderin' Ways
                                                                                                                                        The Bully
                                                                                                                                        Lonely
                                                                                                                                        Queen Of My School
                                                                                                                                        Never Know
                                                                                                                                        Born Wrong/Heart Song
                                                                                                                                        The Fire
                                                                                                                                        Home Of A Heart (The Woods)
                                                                                                                                        This Is My Tree
                                                                                                                                        If You Give Enough
                                                                                                                                        Go To School

                                                                                                                                        Future Islands

                                                                                                                                        As Long As You Are

                                                                                                                                          As Long As You Are looks to the past as well as the future, confronting old ghosts and embracing a new hope. It is an album about trust, full of honesty, redemption and “letting go”, allowing old wounds to heal and bringing painful chapters to a close.

                                                                                                                                          As Long As You Are also signals a new era for Future Islands. Drummer Mike Lowry officially joins as a fully-fledged member and songwriter bolstering the founding trio of William Cashion, Samuel T. Herring and Gerrit Welmers. Together, the four-piece took on official production duties for the first time, co-producing As Long As You Are with engineer Steve Wright at his Wrightway Studios in Baltimore. Their brand of new wave synth-pop full of bright melodies and heavenly choruses is as euphoric and uninhibitedly joyful as anything the band has done in their 14-year career.

                                                                                                                                          STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                          Barry says: There is something absolutely enthralling about Samuel T. Herring's on-stage dancing. We all know that, but it's with no small amount of joy that I can confirm the quality of the music is indeed up to the same high standards. Longing, wistful and emotive, with electronic synthy sections beautifully offset with the more driven anthemic material. 'As Long As You Are' is a triumph, and quite possibly the best work they've done.

                                                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                          Glada
                                                                                                                                          For Sure
                                                                                                                                          Born In A War
                                                                                                                                          I Knew You
                                                                                                                                          City’s Face
                                                                                                                                          Waking
                                                                                                                                          The Painter
                                                                                                                                          Plastic Beach
                                                                                                                                          Moonlight
                                                                                                                                          Thrill
                                                                                                                                          Hit The Coast

                                                                                                                                          The Wolfgang Press

                                                                                                                                          Unremembered, Remembered

                                                                                                                                            Featuring six never before heard tracks, Unremembered, Remembered is essentially the final album from The Wolfgang Press that never was. Having exhumed the tracks, the band have mastered their final studio sessions at Abbey Road and they sound magnificent. Art for this release has been done by long-time 4AD collaborator Chris Bigg. Originally released for Record Store Day in August 2020, this is now available as a limited edition one-off pressing on CD

                                                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                            You Say You Love Me
                                                                                                                                            God, Let It Shine On
                                                                                                                                            My Mother Told Me
                                                                                                                                            Black Hole Star
                                                                                                                                            Liar
                                                                                                                                            Miss H.I.V.

                                                                                                                                            The Mountain Goats

                                                                                                                                            Tallahassee

                                                                                                                                              The 4AD debut from The Mountain Goats, unavailable for many years, now reissued on vinyl.

                                                                                                                                              It was the band’s second new album to be released in 2002 and it marked quite a few changes. First of all, after releasing records (and cassettes) on small record labels such as Shrimper, Ajax and Emperor Jones, ‘Tallahassee’ was the first Mountain Goats album to be released on 4AD.

                                                                                                                                              It was also the first Mountain Goats album to have an official single released, for the song ‘See America Right’.

                                                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                              Tallahassee
                                                                                                                                              First Few Desperate Hours
                                                                                                                                              Southwood Plantation Road
                                                                                                                                              Game Shows Touch Our Lives
                                                                                                                                              The House That Dripped Blood
                                                                                                                                              Idylls Of The King
                                                                                                                                              No Children
                                                                                                                                              See America Right
                                                                                                                                              Peacocks
                                                                                                                                              International Small Arms Traffic Blues
                                                                                                                                              Have To Explode
                                                                                                                                              Old College Try
                                                                                                                                              Oceanographer’s Choice
                                                                                                                                              Alpha Rats Nest

                                                                                                                                              The Wolfgang Press

                                                                                                                                              Unremembered, Remembered

                                                                                                                                                THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE AUGUST 29TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
                                                                                                                                                LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.


                                                                                                                                                This one will be a real surprise for both Wolfgang Press and 4AD fans.Featuring 7 never before heard tracks, Unremembered, Remembered is essentially the final album from The Wolfgang Press that never was.Having exhumed the tracks, the band have mastered their final studio sessions at Abbey Road and they sound magnificent.Art for this release has been done by long-time 4AD collaborator Chris Bigg and news of the album's existence will drop with the RSD 2020 announcement.Red vinyl 1.You Say You Love Me 2.God, Let It Shine On 3.My Mother Told Me 4.Black Hole Star 5.Liar 6.Miss H.I.V.

                                                                                                                                                The Lemon Twigs

                                                                                                                                                Songs For The General Public

                                                                                                                                                  The D’Addario brothers will return this Spring with their third Lemon Twigs album, Songs For The General Public - written, recorded and produced by the D’Addarios at their home studio in Long Island, Sonora Studios in Los Angeles and Electric Lady in New York City.

                                                                                                                                                  The prodigiously-talented brothers first emerged as The Lemon Twigs in 2016 with their debut LP Do Hollywood, whose showstopping melodies mined from every era of rock quickly earned fans in Elton John, Questlove, and Jack Antonoff. Go To School, the ambitious 15-track coming-of-age opus, followed in 2018 and solidified the band’s reputation for building grand walls of sound around an audacious concept.

                                                                                                                                                  Sam France of Foxygen writes, “The Twigs are legends - teen sensations, k pop stars, BrotherLovers, Twiggy Cola Lite. Their songs exist as cultural freebase. Cocaine, water, baking soda, and DNA. (o.k. )

                                                                                                                                                  While the White Smile Face People appoint Garage Girl, Digital Bass Face or Shitbag Boy as the new FreakoftheWeek, the Twigs have lived 26 cat lives from here to japan making real life bonafide Humans rejoice in the pagan art of Magick Pop Freebase. There are millions of fans, You see; the twigz are more Popular than You, they are Greater than Your Favorite Band, they are a phenomenon.”

                                                                                                                                                  STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                  Barry says: Lemon twigs carry all of the glam rock sensibilities of some of the greatest bands of the 80's but tempered with the sort of melodic tomfoolery that wouldn't sound out of date coming from Elton John. It's a baffling, and absolutely spellbinding combination, and serves to gain them fans from all over the musical spectrum. They're going to be huge, and this is further evidence to back that up.

                                                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                  1. Hell On Wheels
                                                                                                                                                  2. Live In Favor Of Tomorrow
                                                                                                                                                  3. No One Holds You (Closer Than The One You Haven’t Met)
                                                                                                                                                  4. Fight
                                                                                                                                                  5. Somebody Loving You
                                                                                                                                                  6. Moon
                                                                                                                                                  7. The One
                                                                                                                                                  8. Only A Fool
                                                                                                                                                  9. Hog
                                                                                                                                                  10. Why Do Lovers Own Each Other?
                                                                                                                                                  11. Leather Together
                                                                                                                                                  12. Ashamed

                                                                                                                                                  Bing & Ruth

                                                                                                                                                  Species

                                                                                                                                                    Bing & Ruth, the ever-evolving project helmed by New York composer David Moore, has announced details of a new album, scheduled for release this summer. While on a surface level, Species is an exploration of the sonic possibilities of the Farfisa organ, aided only by a clarinet and double bass (played respectively by founding members Jeremy Viner and Jeff Ratner), the title Species is a nod to both humanity and humility – a devotion to the godly intuition with which we are all endowed, and the humbleness required of us to perceive it. It’s also about suspended time and trance; not just a steady movement from A to B, but as something that flows, meanders and eddies, like water.

                                                                                                                                                    Species, and the transcendental state it embodies, was inspired by two recent loves of Moore’s: the desert and long-distance running. Briefly relocating from his New York base to Point Dume, between the Pacific Ocean and the desert, Moore was able to indulge in both passions, which in turn provided stimulus for new work. He says, “I’d found myself in places unfamiliar enough that I could easily lose all sense of direction, size and, more than anything, all sense of time. The music I was making became a kind of reflection of these intentional detachments - and a place to mirror that feeling of trance that had pushed them out in the first place.”

                                                                                                                                                    STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                    Barry says: Shifting swathes of reverberated electronics, bright echoes and soaring synths slowly evolve into euphoric slo-mo key changes and aquatic phrases. It's an ambient lovers dream, and one that will be on my stereo for some time to come.

                                                                                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                    Body In A Room
                                                                                                                                                    Badwater Psalm
                                                                                                                                                    I Had No Dream
                                                                                                                                                    Blood Harmony
                                                                                                                                                    Live Forever
                                                                                                                                                    The Pressure Of This Water
                                                                                                                                                    Nearer

                                                                                                                                                    Pixies

                                                                                                                                                    Trompe Le Monde

                                                                                                                                                      On this final album from The Pixies, Frank Black explores his sci-fi fascination in his usual quirky, cryptic style. Less abrasive than previous releases and with more depth emotionally, "Trompe Le Monde" is a rousing swan song that opened the flood gates for alternative rock bands to finally break through into the mainstream. The Pixies still remain one of the most influential rock bands of the last 20 years.

                                                                                                                                                      Purity Ring

                                                                                                                                                      Womb

                                                                                                                                                        After more than five years, Purity Ring have returned to announce their third album, entirely produced and recorded by the duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick. Womb chronicles a quest for comfort, the search for a resting place in a world where so much is beyond our control. The striking vulnerability of “ruby insides” - “If I could, I would let you see through me” - charts a course that’s both intensely personal and deeply connected to those close to us, our kin whether by nature or nurture. As the ground shifts beneath their feet, Womb’s characters help one another face death, despair, and world-altering discovery with resilience and grace. For all the terrain it encompasses, Womb’s quest culminates in “stardew”, a glittering, transcendent invitation to “just be where you are” - to experience the kind of powerful peace that can only be found by truly coming home.

                                                                                                                                                        Womb follows Purity Ring’s 2012 internationally-acclaimed and highly influential debut Shrines and 2015’s another eternity. On another eternity, The New York Times praised the songs as “only a few steps removed from radio hits by singers like Ariana Grande and Ellie Goulding” while Rolling Stone called them “lustrous synth pop plus cavernous hip hop” and The New Yorker lauded the duo for “creat[ing] electro-pop that is as warm and human as it is cold and alien, an intoxicating combination that feels boldly futuristic.”

                                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                        Rubyinsides
                                                                                                                                                        Pink Lightning
                                                                                                                                                        Peacefall
                                                                                                                                                        I Like The Devil
                                                                                                                                                        Femia
                                                                                                                                                        Sinew
                                                                                                                                                        Vehemence
                                                                                                                                                        Silkspun
                                                                                                                                                        Almanac
                                                                                                                                                        Stardew

                                                                                                                                                        Cocteau Twins

                                                                                                                                                        Head Over Heels - Vinyl Reissue

                                                                                                                                                          4AD are repressing two more Cocteau Twins’ albums on vinyl this coming March, the albums Head Over Heels and Treasure. Both following on from the recent reissues of Blue Bell Knoll, Heaven or Las Vegas, Tiny Dynamine / Echoes In A Shallow Bay and The Pink Opaque.

                                                                                                                                                          Using new masters created from high definition files transferred from the original analogue tapes, both albums are being pressed on 180g heavyweight vinyl and come with download codes.

                                                                                                                                                          Head Over Heels:
                                                                                                                                                          Released in late-1983, Head Over Heels is the Cocteau Twins’ second album and features classic tracks ‘Sugar Hiccup’ and ‘Musette And Drums’. Coming not long after original bassist Will Heggie had departed the band, the chemistry between remaining members Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie was flourishing and by moving the band on from the starkness of their debut, they were now making the music that would help them define the decade ahead; her wordless, dreamlike vocals a powerful instrument over his lush, textured guitars their trademark.

                                                                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                          A1. When Mama Was Moth (3.06)
                                                                                                                                                          A2. Five Ten Fiftyfold (5.01)
                                                                                                                                                          A3. Sugar Hiccup (3.41)
                                                                                                                                                          A4. In Our Angelhood (3.0)
                                                                                                                                                          A5. Glass Candle Grenades (2.45)
                                                                                                                                                          B1. In The Gold Dust Rush (3.40)
                                                                                                                                                          B2. The Tinderbox (Of A Heart) (4.57)
                                                                                                                                                          B3. Multifoiled (2.37)
                                                                                                                                                          B4. My Love Paramour (3.40)
                                                                                                                                                          B5. Musette And Drums (4.38)

                                                                                                                                                          Cocteau Twins

                                                                                                                                                          Garlands - Reissue

                                                                                                                                                            Garlands was the Cocteau Twins debut album, released in the early autumn of 1982. It was the only album they made with original bassist Will Heggie. Describing it as “haunting”, “spellbound”, “diaphanous”, and discerning a “frosting of sweetness”, the critics wore out their adjective; this was rock music - just - but it was conjured in the unlikeliest environment from the strangest of material. This is Garlands’ first vinyl pressing in over ten years, remastered from the original analogue tapes.

                                                                                                                                                            Cocteau Twins

                                                                                                                                                            Victorialand - Reissue

                                                                                                                                                              Victorialand, Cocteau Twins’ fourth album, was released in spring 1986. The largely acoustic, non-percussive album was made with Elizabeth and Robin, while Simon was working on This Mortal Coil's second album. Dif Juz label mate Richard Thomas guested on tabla and saxophone. The Guardian said "It’s not quite ambient, but it’s definitely not rock’n’roll even by the Cocteaus’ standards, building on the moments of guitar shimmer from the previous years’ EPs, while also stripping back at points to where it’s nothing but a Guthrie guitar line and Fraser’s voice."  Victorialand is remastered from the original analogue tapes.

                                                                                                                                                              U.S. Girls

                                                                                                                                                              Heavy Light

                                                                                                                                                                Heavy Light is the highly anticipated seventh album by U.S. Girls, the protean musical enterprise of multi-disciplinary artist Meg Remy. While Remy has been widely acclaimed for a panoply of closely observed character studies, on Heavy Light she turns inward, recounting personal narratives to create a deeply introspective about-face. The songs are an inquest into the melancholy flavour of hindsight, both personal and cultural. Remy makes this notion formally explicit with the inclusion of three re-worked, previously released songs: ‘Statehouse (It’s A Man’s World)’, ‘Red Ford Radio’, and ‘Overtime’, the latter of which is released today as Heavy Light’s lead single. Its companion video, which stars Andrea Nann of the Dreamwalker Dance Company, was created by Remy.

                                                                                                                                                                Heavy Light follows 2018’s internationally critically-acclaimed breakout album In A Poem Unlimited. Recently named one of the best albums of the decade by Pitchfork, it was lauded across the pond by the likes of The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Crack and Q magazine for being Remy’s most accessible record in her then decade-long career. Heavy Light is produced by Remy and was recorded live with 20 session musicians - including E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons - in Montreal’s acclaimed Hotel 2 Tango studio. Remy worked with co-writers Basia Bulat and Rich Morel to develop the core of Heavy Light, a set of songs conceived as a balance between orchestral percussion (as richly arranged by percussionist Ed Squires) and the human voice (conducted by Kritty Uranowski). The resulting album finds Remy casting herself as lead voice among a harmonious multitude, the singers of which lend not only their voices, but also share reflections on childhood experiences that are collaged into moving spoken word interludes throughout the album. The album is mixed by long-time collaborators Maximilian ‘Twig’ Turnbull, Steve Chahley and Tony Price.

                                                                                                                                                                STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                Barry says: Grooving, psychedelic riffs clash headfirst with Remy's singular vocal brilliance, soaring wonderfully atop thumping percussion and flickering synths. 'Heavy Light' tackles political matters and worldly experiences in a moving and enthralling way. Brilliant stuff.

                                                                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                1. 4 American Dollars
                                                                                                                                                                2. Overtime
                                                                                                                                                                3. IOU
                                                                                                                                                                4. Advice To Teenage Self
                                                                                                                                                                5. State House (It’s A Man’s World)
                                                                                                                                                                6. Born To Lose
                                                                                                                                                                7. And Yet It Moves / Y Se Mueve
                                                                                                                                                                8. The Most Hurtful Thing
                                                                                                                                                                9. Denise, Don’t Wait
                                                                                                                                                                10. Woodstock ‘99
                                                                                                                                                                11. The Color Of Your Childhood Bedroom
                                                                                                                                                                12. The Quiver To The Bomb
                                                                                                                                                                13. Red Ford Radio

                                                                                                                                                                mis·an·thrope /ˈmis(ə)nˌTHrōp,ˈmiz(ə)nˌTHrōp/, noun : a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society.

                                                                                                                                                                An·thro·po·cene /ˈanTHrəpəˌsēn/ , noun : the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

                                                                                                                                                                Miss Anthropocene : The Goddess of Climate Crisis An album by Grimes.

                                                                                                                                                                STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                Barry says: Some of the more propulsive pieces on Grimes' latest outing could easily have been on Art Angels or Visions, being wrapped in the same optimistic bounce that we've become used to, but the majority of the LP is a much more measured and sombre affair, rich with dark, trappy beats and (understandably), politically charged vitriol. A brilliant development for Grimes, and a great listen.

                                                                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                1. So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth
                                                                                                                                                                2. Darkseid
                                                                                                                                                                3. Delete Forever
                                                                                                                                                                4. Violence
                                                                                                                                                                5. 4ÆM
                                                                                                                                                                6. New Gods
                                                                                                                                                                7. My Name Is Dark
                                                                                                                                                                8. You'll Miss Me When I'm Not Around
                                                                                                                                                                9. Before The Fever
                                                                                                                                                                10. IDORU

                                                                                                                                                                Jóhann Jóhannsson makes stately, slow-building and hauntingly melodic music – frequently combining electronic processing with classical orchestrations - that has been bewitching listeners for the last few years. Following "IBM 1401, A User's Manual", "Fordlândia" is the second in a proposed trilogy based on technology and iconic American brand names. "Fordlândia" is Jóhann Jóhannsson's most complete and beautiful piece of music to date, a fascinating, immersive and deeply rewarding web of ideas and melodies, which is sure to win him a legion of new listeners.

                                                                                                                                                                TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                Melodia (I)
                                                                                                                                                                The Rocket Builder (Lo Pan!)
                                                                                                                                                                Melodia (II)
                                                                                                                                                                Fordlandia - Aerial View 
                                                                                                                                                                Melodia (III)
                                                                                                                                                                Chimaerica
                                                                                                                                                                Melodia (IV)
                                                                                                                                                                The Great God Pan Is Dead
                                                                                                                                                                Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device Based On Heim’s Quantum Theory)
                                                                                                                                                                How We Left Fordlândia

                                                                                                                                                                Tune-Yards

                                                                                                                                                                Sorry To Bother You: Original Score

                                                                                                                                                                  Tune-Yards’ original score for Boots Riley’s acclaimed surrealist social satire 2018 film ‘Sorry To Bother You’ (starring Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson) has been praised by Billboard as “a simultaneously erratic and ecstatic medley of instruments and vocal layering”. Tune-Yards’ score album follows the 2018 release of ‘Sorry To Bother You: The Soundtrack’ by The Coup. Director Boots Riley described the score as “the film’s musical voice” and explains the difference between the score and the soundtrack: “The characters can’t hear [the score]; the soundtrack, the characters can [hear].” The score also includes dialogue samples from the film and four bonus tracks never before heard in the film. The bonus tracks feature up-and-coming Oakland artists including Chhoti Maa as well as Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker.

                                                                                                                                                                  TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                  Transformative Experience
                                                                                                                                                                  Study Up
                                                                                                                                                                  STTS
                                                                                                                                                                  SIGNS [Detroit’s Theme]
                                                                                                                                                                  Regalview Theme
                                                                                                                                                                  Money Money Money
                                                                                                                                                                  Powercallers Suite
                                                                                                                                                                  Mr. Green's Muzak
                                                                                                                                                                  Let's Begin Again (Nit Not)
                                                                                                                                                                  Does It Feel Good
                                                                                                                                                                  Sad Theme
                                                                                                                                                                  Revealed
                                                                                                                                                                  Steve Lift's Party
                                                                                                                                                                  Performance Art
                                                                                                                                                                  Triumph
                                                                                                                                                                  Love Theme
                                                                                                                                                                  Play My Clip
                                                                                                                                                                  This Is My White Voice
                                                                                                                                                                  Does It Feel Good (Lucid Dream Mix)
                                                                                                                                                                  The Reveal
                                                                                                                                                                  Backbone

                                                                                                                                                                  Gene Clark

                                                                                                                                                                  No Other - Reissue

                                                                                                                                                                    Gene Clark’s 1974 masterpiece gets the reappraisal it’s long overdue.

                                                                                                                                                                    “One of the greatest albums ever made. Initially celebrated for its obscurity, No Other is now celebrated for its magnificence. It was in every way a magnum opus: epic, sprawling, poetic, choral, rococo.” The Guardian

                                                                                                                                                                    On the eve of what would have been American singer-songwriter and Byrds founding member Gene Clark’s 75th birthday comes the reissue of one of his finest works, No Other. Released in 1974 on Asylum Records, a year after the Byrds shortlived reunion, Gene reached for the stars with No Other; a psychedelic rock, folk, country and soul record that famously cost a small fortune to make. Although received warmly by critics, it flopped and was soon deleted, a failure Gene never came to terms with.

                                                                                                                                                                    However, as The New York Times wrote around the record’s 40th anniversary in 2014, “hindsight has burnished No Other, as it has redeemed other albums that went on to be reconstructed as rock repertory, like Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers and Lou Reed’s Berlin,” with the album now being increasingly recognised as one of the greatest of its time, if not all time.

                                                                                                                                                                    45 years on and recently remastered at Abbey Road, 4AD have given No Other the reappraisal it deserves. 

                                                                                                                                                                    STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                    Darryl says: Recently remastered at Abbey Road and 45 years on from its original release 4AD are giving Gene Clark’s 1974 masterpiece it’s long overdue reissue. Available on black vinyl, standard CD, a limited deluxe CD edition in a hardbound book cover, and an all encompassing and sumptuous silver box set containing vinyl, three SACD’s, Blu-Ray and an 80 page hardbound book.

                                                                                                                                                                    TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                    LP & CD Tracklist:
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Remastered)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. Life’s Greatest Fool
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Silver Raven
                                                                                                                                                                    3. No Other
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Strength Of Strings
                                                                                                                                                                    5. From A Silver Phial
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Some Misunderstanding
                                                                                                                                                                    7. The True One
                                                                                                                                                                    8. Lady Of The North

                                                                                                                                                                    2CD Tracklist:
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Remastered)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. Life’s Greatest Fool
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Silver Raven
                                                                                                                                                                    3. No Other
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Strength Of Strings
                                                                                                                                                                    5. From A Silver Phial
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Some Misunderstanding
                                                                                                                                                                    7. The True One
                                                                                                                                                                    8. Lady Of The North

                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Sessions 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. From A Silver Phial (Version 4)
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Silver Raven (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    3. Some Misunderstanding (Version 3)
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Life’s Greatest Fool (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    5. Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Lady Of The North (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    7. The True One (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    8. Strength Of Strings (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    9. No Other (Version 2)

                                                                                                                                                                    Deluxe Boxset Tracklist:
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Remastered)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. Life’s Greatest Fool
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Silver Raven
                                                                                                                                                                    3. No Other
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Strength Of Strings
                                                                                                                                                                    5. From A Silver Phial
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Some Misunderstanding
                                                                                                                                                                    7. The True One
                                                                                                                                                                    8. Lady Of The North

                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Sessions 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. From A Silver Phial (Version 4)
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Silver Raven (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    3. Some Misunderstanding (Version 3)
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Life’s Greatest Fool (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    5. Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Lady Of The North (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    7. The True One (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    8. Strength Of Strings (Version 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    9. No Other (Version 2)

                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Sessions 2)
                                                                                                                                                                    1. From A Silver Phial (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    2. Life’s Greatest Fool (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    3. No Other (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    4. Lady Of The North (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    5. Some Misunderstanding (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    6. Silver Raven (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    7. Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    8. The True One (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    9. Strength Of Strings (Version 1)
                                                                                                                                                                    10. Life’s Greatest Fool (Single Version)
                                                                                                                                                                    11. Silver Raven (Single Edit)

                                                                                                                                                                    Exclusive 7”
                                                                                                                                                                    A. Life’s Greatest Fool (Single Version)
                                                                                                                                                                    AA. Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 1)

                                                                                                                                                                    Documentary
                                                                                                                                                                    The Byrd Who Flew Alone: The Making Of No Other By Paul Kendall
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (Alternate Audio Versions)
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (HD Audio Remaster)
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (5.1 Surround Mix)
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (1974 Vinyl Master)
                                                                                                                                                                    No Other (2019 Stereo Remix

                                                                                                                                                                    80 Page Hardbound Book
                                                                                                                                                                    Extensive Liner Notes
                                                                                                                                                                    Lyrics
                                                                                                                                                                    Previously Unpublished Photographs
                                                                                                                                                                    Essays By Andrew Perry, Jon Einarson, Johnny Rogan, Martin Aston & Sid Griffin.

                                                                                                                                                                    Big Thief

                                                                                                                                                                    Two Hands

                                                                                                                                                                      Big Thief had only just finished work on their 3rd album, U.F.O.F. – “the celestial twin” – days before in a cabin studio in the woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth U.F.O.F.’s sister album – “the earth twin” – Two Hands. 30 miles west of El Paso, surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, Big Thief (a.k.a. Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia) set up their instruments as close together as possible to capture their most important collection of songs yet. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt.

                                                                                                                                                                      In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the U.F.O.F. session, the southwestern Sonic Ranch studio was chosen for its vast desert location. The 105-degree weather boiled away any clinging memories of the green trees and wet air of the previous session. Two Hands had to be completely different— an album about the Earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. With raw power and intimacy, Two Hands folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album.

                                                                                                                                                                      STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                      Barry says: It's October, and this is already the second Big Thief album this year. It would be understandable to think that such prolific creation would dilute the end product a little (it often does...) but in the case of Lenker, Meek and co, it couldn't be further from the truth. Arresting, heartfelt and beautiful throughout. Yet another stunning outing from the unstoppable Big Thief.

                                                                                                                                                                      TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                      1.Rock And Sing
                                                                                                                                                                      2. Forgotten Eyes
                                                                                                                                                                      3. The Toy
                                                                                                                                                                      4. Two Hands
                                                                                                                                                                      5. Those Girls
                                                                                                                                                                      6. Shoulders
                                                                                                                                                                      7. Not
                                                                                                                                                                      8. Wolf
                                                                                                                                                                      9. Replaced
                                                                                                                                                                      10. Cut My Hair

                                                                                                                                                                      Efterklang

                                                                                                                                                                      Altid Sammen

                                                                                                                                                                        Altid Sammen (meaning “always together”) is deep and sonorous, steeped in the sonic experimentation that has long been their trademark since Tripper, the Danes’ 2004 debut. As bold and ambitious in scope as their last collection of songs, Piramida, Casper Clausen (vocals), Mads Brauer (synths, electronics) and Rasmus Stolberg (bass) have taken another creative U-turn, this time fusing baroque instrumentation with their signature expansive sound.

                                                                                                                                                                        Efterklang’s last release, Piramida, centred around a ghost town in the Arctic, was a grand and all-encompassing project that spawned a movie, live album and a series of unforgettable shows (including a live debut at the Sydney Opera House). Their final performance in Sønderborg – the southern Danish town where the band grew up – marked a closing of a chapter, for Piramida and for Efterklang.

                                                                                                                                                                        “We needed a break from the album and touring routine, and we needed a break from Efterklang,” says Clausen. “After the Sønderborg show, things felt very exciting – and a bit scary too. We could think freely, and move in new directions again, just focusing on the things that excited the 3 of us.”

                                                                                                                                                                        That break saw the trio explore projects outside of the group’s confines. Together they co-wrote and performed an opera with friend and composer Karsten Fundal (LEAVES, The Colour Of Falling) as part of the Copenhagen Opera Festival. Meanwhile, Clausen, Brauer and Stolberg reunited with Efterklang’s touring drummer Tatu Rönkkö for a new band, Liima. In sharp contrast to Efterklang, they scaled down the music process, creating songs in a day, and released two records of icy, grand electronic pop, ii (2016) and 1982 (2017).

                                                                                                                                                                        What lured them back as Efterklang was another off-kilter collaboration, this time with B.O.X, a Belgian ensemble founded by lute player Pieter Theuns that performs new music with baroque orchestration. Initially invited by Theuns to compose music for a joint performance, the experience inspired and invigorated the trio to return to the studio for a new Efterklang album proper. For perhaps the first time in the band’s history, they took a less-is-more approach to Altid Sammen, engaging on a more primal and emotional level. The album also sees the trio break from tradition with Clausen singing in his mother tongue some of his most personal lyrics thus far.

                                                                                                                                                                        “Altid Sammen’s songs are about belief and togetherness,” Clausen says. “Not in a religious way – none of us are believers of a defined religion. The words are searching for meaning in intimate relationships, in nature, in death and eternity. The bonds we create; to gather, hold hands, sing or share a moment together. We’re all connected, across nations, age, sex and gender. We come together with all of our backgrounds, and we move apart in all sorts of directions, always together.”

                                                                                                                                                                        STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                        Barry says: I've loved Efterklang for some time now, and it really has been fascinating to see the trajectory of the core band and their former members (Peter Broderick being one of them!). Their newest outing takes the morose poppy melodies of Piramida with some of the electronic scree of their earlier work, and it's a perfectly measured and completely brilliant electronic pop LP. Superb as ever from Clausen & co.

                                                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

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                                                                                                                                                                        Velvet Negroni

                                                                                                                                                                        NEON BROWN

                                                                                                                                                                        On Neon Brown, Velvet Negroni is a griot relaying the life and times of his own island—it’s a singular place, with the squeak and thrum of guitar strings looped over drum machine beats accented by steely marimbas, all creating a pocket for one of the most authentic and original artistic voices ever committed to tape.

                                                                                                                                                                        You follow his voice as it rhymes in double time, or hiccups and la-las through a break, or croons from a room down the hall, as it unfolds into another story of lost love, or another joke about lost drugs, as he tries to make sense of a life spent in the (sometimes harrowing) pursuit of communion.

                                                                                                                                                                        Turns out what sounds like a lonely island is in fact the city of Minneapolis. Velvet Negroni grew up in an outer suburb of the Twin Cities as Jeremy Nutzman, a black kid adopted into a white evangelical Christian family. His fundamentalist missionary of a mother drove him to virtuosity, both as a classically trained concert pianist and a competitive figure skater, but he had to climb out his bedroom window to play guitar in his first band.

                                                                                                                                                                        In 2016 after years of performing under a schizophrenic rotation of various aliases, Nutzman finally landed on a persona that he felt he could be proud of. It was in a fancy cocktail bar in Austin, Texas that he hatched Velvet Negroni. A tour opening for Bon Iver followed, as well as a writing credit on Kid Cudi and Kanye West’s “Feel the Love” off their 2018 album Kids See Ghosts. That same year, he released his first singles on b4, “First Time” and “Crybaby.”

                                                                                                                                                                        It was in the summer of 2018, together with his friends, producers Psymun (Future, Young Thug, Dua Saleh) and Tickle Torture, that Velvet Negroni composed the stories on NEON BROWN, stories he’s been waiting a lifetime to tell.


                                                                                                                                                                        TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                        1. One One
                                                                                                                                                                        2. Wine Green
                                                                                                                                                                        3. Kurt Cobain
                                                                                                                                                                        4. Poster Child
                                                                                                                                                                        5. Confetti
                                                                                                                                                                        6. U.Dunno
                                                                                                                                                                        7. Choir Boy
                                                                                                                                                                        8. Scratchers
                                                                                                                                                                        9. Nester
                                                                                                                                                                        10. Feel Let
                                                                                                                                                                        11. Ectodub

                                                                                                                                                                        Pixx

                                                                                                                                                                        Small Mercies

                                                                                                                                                                          Although love lives at the heart of her second album, it has little to do with romance. Small Mercies is absolutely not a heartbreak record, nor is it a celebration of new love, or sisterly call-to-arms or vengeful catharsis. Instead, it is a series of poetic examinations of love across the experiential spectrum, from the micro (self-love) to the macro (devotional faith-inspired love, love for this planet), set to a soundtrack that mixes electronic pop and grungy guitar rock with aplomb.

                                                                                                                                                                          Small Mercies follows the 23 year-old’s debut album, The Age Of Anxiety (2017) – an unsettling synth-pop record fuelled by Pixx’s own debilitating experience of angst – and 2015’s forlorn and folk-edged Fall In EP. Co-produced by Simon Byrt (who worked on both her EP and debut album) and Dan Carey, it sees Pixx assuming different personas to examine the damage done by religion, gender-based power hierarchies and stereotypes, the tipping point of Earth’s destruction and love.

                                                                                                                                                                          STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                          Barry says: It genuinely surprised me that Pixx (nom-de-plume of London-based Hannah Rodgers) weren't from Australia because the sound is a perfect addition to the punky, snarling catalogue of artists like Courtney Barnett or Stella Donnelly, rich with attitude and brimming with superb songs, delivered with confidence and wit.

                                                                                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                          Andean Condor
                                                                                                                                                                          Bitch
                                                                                                                                                                          Disgrace
                                                                                                                                                                          Small Mercies
                                                                                                                                                                          Peanuts Grow Underground
                                                                                                                                                                          Funsize
                                                                                                                                                                          Dirt Interlude Pt. 1
                                                                                                                                                                          Mary Magdalene
                                                                                                                                                                          Hysterical
                                                                                                                                                                          Eruption 24
                                                                                                                                                                          Dirt Interlude Pt. 2
                                                                                                                                                                          Duck Out
                                                                                                                                                                          Blowfish

                                                                                                                                                                          I Am Easy To Find is the band’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY®-award winning release Sleep Well Beast. A companion short film with the same name will also be released with music by The National and inspired by the album. The film was directed by Academy Award-nominated director Mike Mills (20th Century Women, Beginners), and starring Academy Award Winner Alicia Vikander. Mills, along with the band, is credited as co-producer of the album, which was mostly recorded at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY with additional sessions in Paris, Berlin, Cincinnati, Austin, Dublin, Brooklyn and more far flung locations. The album features vocal contributions from Sharon Van Etten, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lisa Hannigan, Mina Tindle and more.

                                                                                                                                                                          I Am Easy to Find is a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and a 68-minute album by the National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other”—they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.

                                                                                                                                                                          As the album’s opening track, ‘You Had Your Soul With You,’ unfurls, it’s so far, so National: a digitally manipulated guitar line, skittering drums, Berninger’s familiar baritone, mounting tension. Then around the 2:15 mark, the true nature of I Am Easy To Find announces itself: The racket subsides, strings swell, and the voice of long-time David Bowie bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey booms out—not as background vocals, not as a hook, but to take over the song. Elsewhere it’s Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, or Sharon Van Etten, or Mina Tindle or Kate Stables of This Is the Kit, or varying combinations of them. The Brooklyn Youth Choir, whom Bryce Dessner had worked with before. There are choral arrangements and strings on nearly every track, largely put together by Bryce in Paris—not a negation of the band’s dramatic tendencies, but a redistribution of them.

                                                                                                                                                                          “Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn't because, ‘Oh, let's have more women's voices,’ says Berninger. “It was more, ‘Let's have more of a fabric of people's identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn't let that happen.”

                                                                                                                                                                          TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                          1. You Had Your Soul With You
                                                                                                                                                                          2. Quiet Light
                                                                                                                                                                          3. Roman Holiday
                                                                                                                                                                          4. Oblivions
                                                                                                                                                                          5. The Pull Of You
                                                                                                                                                                          6. Hey Rosey
                                                                                                                                                                          7. I Am Easy To Find
                                                                                                                                                                          8. Her Father In The Pool
                                                                                                                                                                          9. Where Is Her Head
                                                                                                                                                                          10. Not In Kansas
                                                                                                                                                                          11. So Far So Fast
                                                                                                                                                                          12. Dust Swirls In Strange Light
                                                                                                                                                                          13. Hairpin Turns
                                                                                                                                                                          14. Rylan
                                                                                                                                                                          15. Underwater
                                                                                                                                                                          16. Light Years

                                                                                                                                                                          Side 5 On Deluxe Triple – Contains 22 Minutes Of Music From The I Am Easy To Find Original Film Score – EXCLUSIVE To This Format.
                                                                                                                                                                          Side 6 On 3LP - Etching.

                                                                                                                                                                          Holly Herndon

                                                                                                                                                                          Proto

                                                                                                                                                                            Holly’s third full-length album "Proto" isn’t about A.I., but much of it was created in collaboration with her own A.I. baby, 'Spawn'. For the album, she assembled a contemporary ensemble of vocalists, developers and an inhuman intelligence housed in a DIY souped-up gaming PC to create a record that encompasses live vocal processing and timeless folk singing, and places an emphasis on alien song craft and new forms of communion. "Proto" makes reference to what Holly refers to as the protocol era, where rapidly surfacing ideological battles over the future of A.I. protocols, centralised and decentralised internet protocols, and personal and political protocols compel us to ask ourselves who are we, what are we, what do we stand for, and what are we heading towards?

                                                                                                                                                                            "Eternal" follows the 2018 release of Holly and Jlin’s collaborative song "Godmother (feat. Spawn)". The skittering track, which was created by Spawn reimagining the artworks of her 'godmother' Jlin in a trained model of her mother’s voice with no editing or sample trickery, was praised everywhere from NPR to The Guardian to New York Times, and elsewhere. You can hear traces of Spawn throughout the album, developed in partnership with long time collaborator Mathew Dryhurst and ensemble developer Jules LaPlace, and even eavesdrop on the live training ceremonies conducted in Berlin, in which hundreds of people were gathered to teach Spawn how to identify and reinterpret unfamiliar sounds in group call-and-response singing sessions; a contemporary update on the religious gathering Holly was raised amongst in her upbringing in East Tennessee.

                                                                                                                                                                            'There’s a pervasive narrative of technology as dehumanizing,' says Holly. 'We stand in contrast to that. It’s not like we want to run away; we’re very much running towards it, but on our terms. Choosing to work with an ensemble of humans is part of our protocol. I don’t want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage. I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty.'

                                                                                                                                                                            Since her arrival in 2012, Holly has successfully mined the edges of electronic and avant garde pop and emerged with a dynamic and disruptive canon of her own, all while studying for her soon-to-be-completed PhD at Stanford University, researching machine learning and music. Her LP "Platform" closed out 2015 by gracing year-end lists from Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, and The Wire. In the aftermath, Radiohead hand-picked her to open up their European tour. Just as "Platform" forewarned of the manipulative personal and political impacts of prying social media platforms long before popular acceptance, "Proto" is a euphoric and principled statement setting the shape of things to come.


                                                                                                                                                                            STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                            Matt says: Someone call Elon Musk! Holly Herdon offering the machines some piecework here, enlisting the ghosts of Terminator 2 to concoct a really quite cerebral piece of haunted-electronic-folk experimentation. Scared? You should be!

                                                                                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                            01. Birth
                                                                                                                                                                            02. Alienation
                                                                                                                                                                            03. Canaan (Live Training)
                                                                                                                                                                            04. Eternal
                                                                                                                                                                            05. Crawler
                                                                                                                                                                            06. Extreme Love (with Lily Anna Haynes And Jenna Sutela)
                                                                                                                                                                            07. Frontier
                                                                                                                                                                            08. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
                                                                                                                                                                            09. SWIM
                                                                                                                                                                            10. Evening Shades (Live Training)
                                                                                                                                                                            11. Bridge (with Martine Syms)
                                                                                                                                                                            12. Godmother (with Jlin)
                                                                                                                                                                            13. Last Gasp

                                                                                                                                                                            U.F.O.F., F standing for ‘Friend’, is the name of the highly anticipated third record by Big Thief, set to be released by 4AD on May. It was recorded in rural western Washington at Bear Creek Studios with engineer Dom Monks, and producer Andrew Sarlo who was also behind their previous albums.

                                                                                                                                                                            The New York-based band, featuring Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums), has spent the last 4 years on an incessant world tour, winning the devotion of an enthusiastic and rapidly expanding audience.

                                                                                                                                                                            Their songs represent an emotional bravery and realness that weaves intimate relationships with the listener, a phenomenon that has made them one of the most widely-respected bands of the current era.

                                                                                                                                                                            STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                            Barry says: Big Thief are one of our favourites in Piccadilly, and this latest iteration of their sound really shows why. Skilfully toeing the line between mournful acoustic balladry, simmering country and more upbeat melodic indie, Big Thief have once again brought us an eminently listenable and transportative triumph.

                                                                                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                            1. Contact
                                                                                                                                                                            2. UFOF
                                                                                                                                                                            3. Cattails
                                                                                                                                                                            4. From
                                                                                                                                                                            5. Open Desert
                                                                                                                                                                            6. Orange
                                                                                                                                                                            7. Century
                                                                                                                                                                            8. Strange
                                                                                                                                                                            9. Betsy
                                                                                                                                                                            10. Terminal Paradise
                                                                                                                                                                            11. Jenni
                                                                                                                                                                            12. Magic Dealer

                                                                                                                                                                            Aldous Harding releases her third album, Designer. Designer finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of the internationally lauded Party, Harding came off a 100-date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road.

                                                                                                                                                                            Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen. From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich and timeless songwriting.

                                                                                                                                                                            STAFF COMMENTS

                                                                                                                                                                            Barry says: Another stunning LP from Harding here, being a favourite in the shop, we're no newbies to her own brand of rhythmic country-tinged melodic indie, but this time around we get the Welsh input from Huw Hawkline and Steve Baboo, both acts i'm well accustomed with from my time in Cardiff, and both perfectly fitting in to Harding's musical world. Beautiful stuff.

                                                                                                                                                                            TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                            1. Fixture Picture
                                                                                                                                                                            2. Designer
                                                                                                                                                                            3. Zoo Eyes
                                                                                                                                                                            4. Treasure
                                                                                                                                                                            5. The Barrel
                                                                                                                                                                            6. Damn
                                                                                                                                                                            7. Weight Of The Planets
                                                                                                                                                                            8. Heaven Is Empty
                                                                                                                                                                            9. Pilot

                                                                                                                                                                            Methyl Ethel

                                                                                                                                                                            Triage

                                                                                                                                                                              The musical project of Jake Webb, Methyl Ethel, has always been a surrealist outfit - a dark and obscured expression of life set to the backdrop of dream pop hooks. But Triage is a more reflective album than their previous two – featuring singles ‘Scream Whole’ and ‘Real Tight’, it explores the notion of coming of age, only to reference it for the snapshots and passing memories that it has become.



                                                                                                                                                                              TRACK LISTING

                                                                                                                                                                              Ruiner
                                                                                                                                                                              Scream Whole
                                                                                                                                                                              All The Elements
                                                                                                                                                                              Trip The Mains
                                                                                                                                                                              Post-Blue
                                                                                                                                                                              Real Tight
                                                                                                                                                                              Hip Horror
                                                                                                                                                                              What About The 37º?
                                                                                                                                                                              No Fighting


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